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Title: The Minister's Wife

Author: Mrs. Oliphant

Release date: November 8, 2018 [eBook #58253]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
        produced from images available at The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MINISTER'S WIFE ***




Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images available at The Internet Archive)









                          THE MINISTER’S WIFE

                      [Illustration: THE LETTER.]

                            [Illustration:

                            The Minister’s
                                 Wife

                            (MRS OLIPHANT)

                                LONDON
                          EVERETT & Co. LTD.
                      42 ESSEX ST. STRAND, W.C.]




               EVERETT’S LIBRARY, 7D. NET.


     A TRAMP ABROAD                         _Mark Twain_
     A LADDER OF SWORDS             _Sir Gilbert Parker_
     OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE              _John Oxenham_
     KINGDOM OF SLENDER SWORDS    _Hallie Erminie Rives_
     THE MARRIAGE OF MARGARET          _Madame Albanesi_
     THE KING’S MIGNON            _J. Bloundelle-Burton_
     PROPER PRIDE                         _B. M. Croker_
     THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE            _George Macdonald_
     BEYOND THE CITY                _Sir A. Conan Doyle_
     MY LADY OF ORANGE                    _H. C. Bailey_
     LOVE OF LIFE                          _Jack London_
     THE CASTING OF NETS                 _Richard Bagot_
     THE STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT              _Mark Twain_
     GOD’S PRISONER                       _John Oxenham_
     BAWBEE JOCK                           _Amy McLaren_
     I KNOW A MAIDEN                   _Madame Albanesi_
     FIRST OF THE EBB                 _Ronald Macdonald_
     THE IRON HEEL                         _Jack London_
     THE ADVENTURERS             _H. B. Marriott-Watson_
     THE BROWNLOWS                        _Mrs Oliphant_
     A GIRL OF THE PEOPLE                  _L. T. Meade_
     THE RED GRANGE                     _Mrs Molesworth_
     THE POINTING FINGER                        “_Rita_”
     UNCLE SILAS                         _J. S. Le Farm_
     THE SPANISH PRISONER       _Mrs P. C. de Crespigny_
     THE PROCESSION OF LIFE              _H. A. Vachell_
     THE NORTHERN IRON                _G. A. Birmingham_
     MY MERRY ROCKHURST         _Agnes & Egerton Castle_
     FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER                   _Maxwell Gray_
     JOHN HERRING                      _S. Baring-Gould_
     THE SWORD OF PEACE           _Alice & Claude Askew_
     THE COUNTESS TEKLA                    _Robert Barr_
     KARL OF ERBACH                       _H. C. Bailey_
     LOVE AND LOUISA                   _Madame Albanesi_
     THE NIGHT-RIDERS                  _Ridgwell Cullum_
     CAPTAIN FORTUNE             _H. B. Marriott-Watson_
     BONDMAN FREE                         _John Oxenham_
     THE HOUND FROM THE NORTH          _Ridgwell Cullum_
     THE FORGE IN THE FOREST     _Charles G. D. Roberts_
     THE SON OF THE WOLF                   _Jack London_
     A BACHELOR IN ARCADY          _Halliwell Sutcliffe_

         _Many further Volumes in Preparation._




THE MINISTER’S WIFE




CHAPTER I


The Glebe Cottage at the head of Loch Diarmid was something between a
primitive cottage and a little house of gentility, commonly called by
that name. The hill-side of which it was the sole inhabitant had once
been ecclesiastical soil belonging to the church of Lochhead, which was
about a mile distant across the braes--and still, so far as this one
dwelling was concerned, retained the name. It had originally been a
building of one story thatched and mossy; but lately a few additional
rooms had been built over one part of it, and covered with respectable
slates. It was composite and characteristic, a human thing, growing out
of human rules, and consequently more picturesque than if it had been
the result of the most picturesque intention. The thatched end of the
cottage was surrounded by no enclosure; the soft rich mossy grass of the
hills broken by great bushes of heather pressed up to its very walls;
while the other half, or western end, was cultivated and formed into a
pretty homely garden. Hardy roses and honeysuckles, and a wavering
wealth of fuchsias, hanging rich with crimson bells, clothed the
southern front and west end--the refined part of the cottage. On the
mountain side, there was nothing but the rough, low whitewashed wall,
the overhanging thatch, the heather within a yard of the house. And
here, some thirty years ago, lived a family of Diarmids, as curiously
varied in internal constitution as was the aspect of their home.

The father of the household had been a soldier ‘in the war,’ and, though
little more than a peasant by birth, had risen from the ranks and won
his commission by sheer daring and bravery. It is very doubtful whether
he was much the happier for it. When he had won his epaulettes another
piece of luck befell him: he caught the eye and fancy of a pretty,
romantic girl, who married him for his valour and his inches and his red
coat. To him she was an heiress, though the actual amount of her wealth
was small. Probably he meant, in his gratitude and pride, to be a good
husband and live happy ever after, and for this end bought the cottage
he had been born in, and added some modern additions to it for the
comfort of his lady-wife. But Duncan was Duncan still, notwithstanding
his good fortune and his epaulettes; and his poor young wife, finding
out her mistake, died at the end of a year or two, after bringing a pair
of twin girls into the world. After this Captain Diarmid saw a great
deal of service in all quarters of the world, and when he came back
married again, a homely ‘neighbour lass,’ and died after she too had
become the mother of two children. They all lived together in the Glebe
Cottage--two sets of people as different as could well be conceived.
During the Captain’s lifetime a certain arbitrary link united them; but
after his death it was not expected by the country-side that there could
be any further family union between the twin sisters to whom everything
belonged, and the homely widow with her girl and boy. It was a wonder to
many of the genteel people of the neighbourhood when it was discovered
that Margaret and Isabel meant to permit their father’s widow, Jean
Campbell, to share their house. Even old Miss Catherine at the Lochhead
gave it as her opinion that ‘Jean and her bairns had no claim on them.’
But the sisters, it was evident, thought differently, though it was not
without a certain conflict within and between themselves that the
decision was made. They were then between nineteen and twenty, two girls
who had grown up as Nature would, with little training of any
description, but with that curious refinement of race or tradition which
is so often to be found in those who, springing from a higher origin,
have yet lived chiefly among the poor. They were ‘ladies born,’ as was
acknowledged by ‘all the Loch’--and universal respect was paid them;
although they were not, except on formal occasions, dignified by the
title of ‘the Miss Diarmids,’ but were generally distinguished only as
‘the Captain’s Margaret,’ and ‘the Captain’s Isabel.’ Margaret had
fallen into bad health some years before her father’s death, and
sickness and a more elevated type of character had made her as much the
elder of the two as if her seniority had been a matter of years instead
of minutes. It was she whose will had prevailed in respect of her
stepmother.

‘She was his wife after all,’ Margaret had said, ‘and they are our
brother and sister. We have no right to forget that----’

‘She had no right to be his wife!’ said hasty Isabel, with sudden
tears. ‘If she were a poor body in a cot-house do you think I would
grudge her anything? but I cannot bear it, because she’s thought to
belong to us--her and those weary bairns.’

‘They are my father’s bairns,’ said the invalid; and then she added
after a pause, ‘And I hope they are God’s bairns, Bell--and you too.’

‘Me!’ said Isabel, looking round, as with a hasty determination even to
deny this bond of union; but when the meaning of the words reached her,
a shade of compunction, a gleam of sorrow, shot one after another over
her face which expressed all she thought, ‘Oh, Margaret, no like you,’
cried the impulsive girl, ‘no like you!’

‘Dinna break my heart,’ said the other, falling in her emotion into the
soft vernacular which both in their composed moments avoided; ‘are we
not all God’s bairns? But we shut our hearts and shut our door the one
on the other; the like of us can be grand and proud and high--but the
like of Him was neighbour and mair to all the poor folk. We ay forget
that.’

‘_You_ never forget,’ said Isabel; ‘I’ll do what you like, my dear, my
dear! I’ll serve them on my knees night and day if you’ll but stay and
be content.’

‘I’m very content to stay,’ said Margaret, with a smile,--‘too content.
It’s not for me to judge; but, Bell, we’ll never be parted if I stay or
if I go.’

To this the other girl made no answer, but fell down on her knees beside
the invalid’s chair, and hid her face in her sister’s dress, weeping
there in silence. Margaret laid her thin hand upon the bright hair and
smoothed it tenderly. She was no older than the creature at her feet,
and yet it seemed to be her child, warm with all the passion of life,
whom she was caressing in her calm and patience. And she smiled, though
Isabel saw it not.

‘I’ll go no further than to Him,’ she said, ‘and you’ve ay access to Him
at all times. I’ll take a grip of His robe that’s made of light, and
I’ll hear your voice when He’s listening to you. I’ll tell Him it’s my
sister:--as if He needed us to tell Him,’ she added, with a soft laugh
of contempt at herself; and her eyes lighted up in her pale face, and
went away far beyond Isabel kneeling at her side, far beyond the homely
walls and little humble house.

By and by Isabel’s weeping ceased, and she became aware, by her sister’s
silence, and by the chill touch of the hand which rested on her head,
that Margaret’s mind had stolen away from all their trials and troubles.
She rose up softly, not disturbing her, and throwing one piteous look at
the pale, soft countenance, withdrew to a corner. One or two hot, hasty
tears fell on the work she had taken up mechanically. It was little
Mary’s black frock, her other sister--Jean Campbell’s little girl. That
was how Isabel succinctly described the children; Jean Campbell’s
bairns; and was that to be all she would have for a sister when God had
His way?

This was how it came to be settled that Jean Campbell and her bairns
should remain in the Glebe Cottage. Jean had few qualifications for the
office of guardian to these girls, but she was in some sort a protector
to them, and took care of their goods and managed their humble affairs.
She was not a woman of such elevation of character as might have fitted
her to take the command of the situation; but she was one of those kind
and faithful souls who so often hide the sweeter qualities of their
nature under an almost harsh, quite uncaressing and undemonstrative
appearance. She, too, had mother-wit enough to see through the Captain,
though no doubt his rank had dazzled her at first; but now that Captain
Duncan was gone, she would have defended his memory to her last breath,
and she was very good and tender in her own way to his daughters. She
accepted her position loyally, without any attempt to better or change
it. The state of Margaret’s health was too apparent to leave bystanders
in any doubt: and Jean was often uneasy--it is impossible to disguise
the fact--as to what might become of herself and her children in such a
case.

But in the meantime she was very kind to her husband’s daughters, and
cared for their goods as if they had been her own, and was a faithful
servant to them. She and her children were as comfortable in their end
of the cottage as were Margaret and Isabel in their half, to which by
times the gentlefolks of the district would come as visitors, out of
consideration for the good blood which ran in their veins by their
mother’s side. It was Isabel who was the representative sister
out-of-doors, and whom Miss Catherine carried with her to return calls,
and make such return as was possible to the civilities of her neighbours
and connections. But it was Margaret who was the queen within and
received all the homage. Day by day, however, carried the elder sister
more out of the range of worldly affairs. It was, as Jean said, ‘a
decline’ that had seized her. Not a violent disease, but a soft fading.
The current of her life kept shrinking into always a narrower and a
narrower channel. She still went every day to a certain spot on the
hill-side above the house, where a little burn went trickling from stone
to stone, and a mountain-ash drooped its leafy branches over a little
green knoll. For many years it had been her daily custom to sit and
ponder, or to pray in this silent grassy place. It was long before she
knew that anyone watched her daily pilgrimage: but nothing escapes the
keen inspection of a rural community. When it had just begun to be a
toil to her to seek her little oratory, a poor mother from the village,
who had been hanging wistfully about, accosted her with a humble
petition that she would ‘think upon’ a suffering child ‘when she gaed up
bye to the brae.’ It was too late then for her to change or to hide her
custom, and by degrees she became used to the petition. She went up with
tremulous, feeble step day after day, bearing upon her tender soul the
burden of other people’s troubles, penitences, and fears. Not a soul in
the parish would willingly have gone that way to disturb the saintly
creature, as she knelt under her rowan-tree, with the soft burn singing
in her ear, and the soft breeze blowing her hair; and offered her
offering and made her intercession. They were stern Puritans in the
village below, and rampant Protestants; but they sent their white
spotless virgin to intercede for them, with a faith which no doctrine
could shake.

She was stealing down softly in the slowly falling twilight, when the
country was brightening into spring, six months after her father’s
death. She had a warm shawl wrapped closely round her shoulders, and her
step was not quite steady as she left the soft grass of the hill-side
for the path. It was but a few yards to the cottage, but her strength
was no more than equal to the exertion. There were two people standing
waiting for her near the door; one of them a tall, vigorous, old lady,
wrapped like herself in a large, soft, black and white shawl, who stood
talking, with some eagerness, to the clergyman of the parish, a fresh,
rural, middle-aged man, with clear eyes, clear complexion, and a general
distinctness about him. It was Miss Catherine of the Lochhead who was
speaking to the minister. Family names were unusual in the parish, for
the population, with some trifling exceptions, were all Diarmids. Miss
Catherine was in some respects the squire of the district. Her brother,
it is true, was the real laird, but he was seldom at home, and Miss
Catherine reigned in his stead. She was discussing the great topic of
the moment with Mr. Lothian; and the two were not quite agreed.

‘Don’t speak to me about miracles,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘I’m not one of
your believing kind. I don’t deny that some of the things are very
surprising, but they’re all to be accounted for. We are surrounded by
surprising things. I never lift my hand to my head, but when I think of
it, it is a wonder to me--but as for direct miracles----’

‘Here is Margaret,’ said the minister; ‘we’ll ask her; you all believe
her better than you’ll ever believe me.’

Margaret came up with her slightly faltering, uncertain step as he
spoke; and the two gazed at her with that mingled awe and pity which a
creature standing on the boundary between life and death naturally calls
forth in every sympathetic soul. Mr. Lothian drew her hand through his
arm as her father might have done.

‘You should not walk so far till you get stronger,’ he said. Margaret
looked at him with a smile, and shook her head.

‘You know I will never get stronger,’ she said. ‘It is not like you to
say what you don’t mean. But you’ll come in. My feet are failing
already, and it’s not often we see Miss Catherine here.’

‘My dear,’ said the old lady, speaking quickly as if to shake the tears
out of her voice, ‘the horses are all busy at the plough, and I’m a poor
walker. I always hear how you are all the same.’

‘You’re vexed to look at me,’ said Margaret. ‘I know what you mean.
You’re like to break your heart when you see my face; but I’m not
grieved for my part. I cannot see what great difference there can be
between this world and the other. God is ay the same. I would like to
see Isabel and know that the poor bairns are doing as they ought----’

‘Oh, Margaret, do not break my heart with your bairns,’ cried Miss
Catherine, with tears in her eyes. ‘It’s you I’m thinking of--I care
nothing for other folk.’

‘You would hate me if I thought that,’ said Margaret, with her soft
smile; ‘and I would be very glad to have your advice. I’m troubled about
Jamie’s education. Isabel is young; she’ll maybe not think as I do. I am
very anxious for your advice.’

‘We were talking of different things,’ said Mr. Lothian, leading the
invalid into the house. ‘We were discussing what has happened in the
country-side. If anybody can convince Miss Catherine it is you,
Margaret. She will not believe the story everybody is full of--though I
saw Ailie with my own eyes, one day helpless on her bed, the next
walking down the hill-side far more strongly, my poor child, than you.’

‘It was hysterical; nothing will make me believe different,’ said Miss
Catherine; ‘fanciful illness, fanciful cure. I’m not gainsaying the
facts, but you’ll never get me to believe it was miraculous. What is
Ailie Macfarlane that God should do miracles for her? If it had been
Margaret here----’

‘But He knows I want no miracles,’ said Margaret; ‘I’m very content with
what I get. I’m fond of both the bairns myself; but I give most to
little Mary; not that she deserves it most, or that I like her best, but
because her nature’s ay craving. It’s the same thing. Ailie craves,
too, and God knows the nature He gave her; but for me--He sees I’m
content.’

‘And you would be content if you were cut in little pieces for Isabel
and Jean Campbell’s weans,’ cried Miss Catherine, with an indignation
that was assumed to hide something else. ‘It takes little to content
you.’

‘Everybody is so good to me,’ said Margaret. ‘You are not so good to
Ailie Macfarlane. You take up her little words, and you’re angry at God
for doing more for her than for me; but I take it as a compliment, for
my part,’ said the girl, with a smile. She was so near her Father in
Heaven, that she spoke of Him almost as she would have done of a father
on earth.

‘Well--well,’ said Miss Catherine, impatiently, ‘we must all believe
just what you like to tell us. Where is Isabel? I think she might be
here to look after you and keep you comfortable instead of wandering all
the day among the hills.’

‘She is never away from me,’ said Margaret, warmly; ‘she would carry me
in her arms if I would let her. I sent her out for change, poor Bell! It
would be a hard thing if I was to let her put all her happiness on me.’

‘Better on you than on that English lad,’ said Miss Catherine, with
heat, ‘that nobody knows. In my day, we were never allowed to speak to a
young man till his kith and kin were known. You think you’re wiser
now--but I wish it may come to no harm,’ said the old lady. She was an
old woman given to opposition, but the strength of her indignation now
lay in the absolute necessity she felt to do or say something which
should not drop into weak lamentation and tears.

Margaret made no answer. She bent back in her invalid chair, and threw
off the shawl which wrapped her, and untied the bonnet which surrounded
her delicate face like a great projecting frame. As for the minister,
his face flushed, and his hands grew restless with agitation; though on
the surface of things it would have seemed that he had very little to do
with the matter.

‘There is no meaning in it,’ said Mr. Lothian; ‘they’re children both;
she is not the one, especially now--No, you need not think of that.’

And with this speech he rose up and went to the window, and gazed out,
not knowing what to say. Miss Catherine held up her hands commenting on
his excitement as women do--half contemptuous, half amused--

‘What is it to him that might be her father?’ she said, leaning over
Margaret, in a whisper. And Margaret smiled with the indulgent quiet of
old age.

‘Let them be,’ she said, softly; ‘God will guide it His own way. I’m
not afraid for my Isabel. When I’m away you’ll see what is in her. My
shadow is ay coming in, though you don’t think it, between her and you.’

At this moment the minister turned round, as with a little impatience,
and interrupted the side-talk.

‘And as we speak of her, here comes Isabel,’ he said, with a hasty sigh.
Both the women knew at once more distinctly than if he had said it, that
the ‘English lad,’ young Stapylton, the one idler of the country-side,
was with Isabel. As the young pair approached, the elder visitors
prepared to go away. Miss Catherine was absorbed in her anxiety and
grief for Margaret, but other feelings stirred in the mind of her
companion. He was eager to leave the cottage before Isabel and her
escort should appear, and hurried the old lady in her leave-taking.

‘We must not tire her out,’ he said, pressing Margaret’s hand with a
certain petulant haste, which she forgave him. It was true he was old
enough to be Isabel’s father; but even that reflection, though he had
often insisted upon it in his own thoughts, had not moved him as it
ought to have done. He could not wait to meet her, but nodded his head
with a poor assumption of carelessness, and hurried Miss Catherine down
the opposite path. Even Mr. Lothian’s secret sentiments had been
discovered, like other things, by the country-side; and the old lady
perceived what he meant, and dried the tear in her eye, and looked at
him with a certain grim, half-pitying smile about the corner of her
mouth.

‘Isabel will think we are angry,’ she said, watching him with a certain
interest--almost amusement in his suffering; ‘though, poor thing, I
don’t know that she is to blame.’

‘Miss Catherine, you forget that an innocent girl should not be spoken
of so,’ said the minister, with a heavy sigh.

‘I forget nothing, Edward Lothian--nor that you, like an old fool, are
breaking your heart about her; a girl that might be your daughter--a
mere silly bairn!’

‘Hush!’ he said. A faint colour had crept upon his face. He made no
attempt to deny the accusation. ‘I hope I am not a man to break my
heart, as you say, for anything in the world,’ he added, after a pause,
‘as long as there is the parish, and my work;’ and the poor man
unconsciously once more rounded his sentence with a sigh.




CHAPTER II


It was almost twilight when Isabel and Horace Stapylton entered the
little parlour where Margaret lay back wearily in her chair, longing for
rest and the silence of the night; but she smiled softly at her sister,
and half rose from her seat, weak, but courteous to acknowledge the
presence of the stranger. Stapylton was the son of an English squire,
who had been sent to Scotland to study agriculture, and from the high
farming of Lothian had found his way to Ayrshire on the score of
cheesemaking, and thence to the other side of the Loch to Mr. Smeaton’s
great stock farm. It had been autumn when he came, and the grouse was a
still more potent attraction. And after a while he had found his way
over the braes to see Mr. Lothian, who had once been tutor to the young
earl (before he came to be marquis), and had many English friends. A
Scotch Manse is the home of hospitality, and young Stapylton found
himself comfortable and saw Isabel, and discovered many attractions in
the place; and, after a succession of flying visits, had settled down as
Mr. Lothian’s permanent guest. In the primitive world of Loch Diarmid he
was distinguished by his nationality, which placed him on a little
pedestal apart from all competitors. He was ‘yon English lad’ to the
prejudiced multitude; and more kindly bystanders entitled him ‘the young
Englishman at the Manse.’ He was a ruddy, well-looking, not highly
refined type of man; but he was a stranger and ‘English,’ and surrounded
with a certain agreeable half-mystery in consequence. His accent had a
sound of refinement and elevation in it to ears used to the broader
vowels and ‘West-country drawl’ of the vernacular. And to Isabel Diarmid
he had a charm more subtle even than the attraction of singularity and
unlikeness to the multitude. He was the first man who had openly and
evidently owned her power as a woman, which of itself is a great matter.
It did not matter where she went, he knew of it as by magic, and was
always at hand, a kind of persecution which is not always disagreeable
to an inexperienced girl. It gave to Isabel that vague, sweet sense of
being one of the princesses of romance which tells for so much in a
young life. She went in now, to her sister, with life breathing about
her, with the wild perfume of the summer blossoms, the heather she had
been brushing against, the bog-myrtle she had been treading under foot,
like an atmosphere round her; and love untold and hope without bounds,
all tender, vague, and splendid, encircling her like the air she
breathed. This was the difference between the two sisters, and it was a
strange difference. If Margaret had been an ordinary invalid it would
have been a touching and melancholy contrast. But as it was the
advantage was not all on her sister’s side.

‘We’ve been hearing of Ailie Macfarlane,’ said Isabel, eagerly; ‘I have
seen her. If it is faith that has cured Ailie, why should you lie there
so weak? Oh, my bonnie Maggie! If it was the like of me it would be
different; but why should Ailie be well and strong and you lie there?’

‘I think because it’s God’s will,’ said Margaret: ‘but Miss Catherine
has been here, and I have done nothing this hour but talk of myself; it
is not the best subject. Mr. Stapylton, I thought you were leaving the
Loch? There is not much to take up a young man like you here.’

‘There is more here than anywhere else in the world,’ said young
Stapylton; ‘I should like to stay all my life--I hate the very thought
of going away.’

‘But your friends are all in England,’ said Margaret. ‘and your life--it
is not easy for me now to feel what life is. I am like one lying by a
riverside, seeing it glide and glide away. I can do little but speak,
and that’s poor work. But you that are young and strong are
different--you and Isabel. You should not put off each other’s time.’

‘We met by chance,’ said Isabel, with a sudden blush; ‘and I have done
all I had to do. There are times when one cannot work; it’s gloaming now
and the day is past. There is a meeting down at the Lochhead with Mr.
Lothian and all the ministers. But I would rather stay with you. _She’s_
coming in from the Lochhead, and the bairns are ready for their
supper--and, Margaret, we’ve wearied you.’

_She_ was Jean Campbell, the stepmother to whom Isabel was less kind and
tolerant than her sister, and whom presently they heard come in with a
little commotion into the large low kitchen where the family took its
meals. Little Mary had been with her mother, and by and by a little
knock at the parlour-door announced her approach. The lady-visitors were
very great people to the child, and only she of ‘the other family’ ever
ventured uninvited into that splendid apartment. She was like Isabel,
though Isabel was indignant to be told so--with two large excitable,
brilliant brown eyes, which at this moment blazed out of the little
flushed and agitated face. She had been at the meeting, and had heard
all, and felt all, with precocious sensibility. While Isabel went out
under pretence of helping her stepmother, but in reality to accompany
her visitor to the door, the child knelt down on the stool she had been
sitting on by Margaret’s side, and began her little passionate tale.

‘It was like in the Bible,’ said little Mary; ‘in the middle of the
reading the Holy Spirit came. O Margaret, I couldn’t bear it! Ailie gave
a great cry, and then she spoke; but it wasna _her_ that spoke: her
countenance was shining white, like the light--just like the Bible; and
she spoke out like a minister, but far better than the minister. It was
awfu’ to hear her; and, O Margaret, I couldn’t bear it; I thought
shame.’

‘Why did you think shame?’ said Margaret. ‘You should have been glad to
hear, thankful to hear--even if it was too high for a bairn like you to
understand.’

‘It wasna that,’ cried the child. ‘I thought shame that it wasna you.
Why can Ailie do it, and no you? And they say you are as good as Ailie,
and as holy; but they say you havena faith. O Margaret, would you let
_her_ ay be the first, and a’ the folk going after her? I canna bear it!
I have faith mysel. You could get up this minute, and go and speak like
Ailie, if you would but have faith.’

Margaret put her arm softly round the excited child, and the little
thing’s agitation found vent in tears. She put down her head on her
sisters shoulder, and sobbed with childish mortification and wounded
pride. Whether any echo of that cry woke in the patient soul thus
strangely reproached, the angels only know. Margaret said nothing for
some minutes; she held the child close with her feeble arm, and calmed
and soothed her; and it was only when the sobs were over and the
excitement subdued that she spoke.

‘So you think God’s no so kind to me?’ she said softly in the darkness.
‘My little Mary, you are too little to understand. I am not one that
craves for gifts; I am content with love. I am best pleased as it is.
Ailie and me are two different spirits; not that one is better and the
other worse. If we had both been angels, we would still have been
different. You are too little to understand. I am not the one to speak
and to work; I am the one to be content.’

‘But you shouldna be content,’ said little Mary; ‘you should have faith.
O Margaret, I’m little, but I’ve faith. Rise up, and be well and live!
They a’ say that to be ill and die is a sin against the Holy Ghost.’

The child had risen up in her excitement, and stood stretching out her
little arms over her sister. The room was dark and still, with but the
‘glimmering square’ of the window fully risible, and night gathering in
all the corners. Margaret’s form was invisible in the soft gloom; the
outline of her reclining figure, the little phantom standing over her,
the suggestion of a contrast, intense as anything in life, was all that
could have been divined by any spectator. Presently soft hands stretched
upwards, and took hold of the little rigid arms of the would-be
marvel-worker; and a voice still softer--low like the coo of a dove,
came out of the darkness.

Margaret attempted no reply; she made no remonstrance; she only repeated
that psalm which is as the voice of its mother to every Scottish
child--the first thing learnt, the last forgotten:--

    ‘The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want,
       He makes me down to lie
     In pastures green; He leadeth me
       The quiet waters by.

     Yea, though I walk in death’s dark vale,
       Yet will I fear none ill;
     For Thou art with me, and Thy rod
       And staff me comfort still.’

As the soft familiar voice went on, poor little Mary’s excited nerves
broke down. She burst once more into tears, and ere the psalm was ended
added her small faltering voice to the low and steady tones of her
sister. She was overcome by influences much too exciting to be
understood by a child. The little creature yielded, because her physical
endurance was not equal to the task she had set herself, but her mind
was unchanged. She was impatient, angry, and mortified. Her sister’s
rival had triumphed, and little Mary could not bear it. As for Margaret,
she rose when her psalm was ended, and took her little sister’s hand and
led her into the kitchen, where the family table was prepared. Margaret
sat down in the cushioned chair which awaited her, still holding little
Mary by the hand. She had to pause to take breath before she spoke, and
the child stood by her like an eager little prisoner, with her big eyes
shining. Mary’s mind was precocious, and stimulated into premature
action by the strange circumstances that surrounded her. She felt as
profoundly as if she had been twenty, that while Margaret and Isabel
were the Miss Diarmids, she was only ‘Jean Campbell’s bairn;’ and now a
sure way of obtaining individual distinction, the highest of all grades
of rank, had burst upon the child; therefore she was in no mood for the
half-reproof which she foresaw was to come.

‘I think little Mary is too young for the meetings,’ said Margaret; ‘not
that I mean she should not learn; but she is very quick and easy moved,
and she is but a bairn.’

The stepmother looked up with a little flash of not unnatural suspicion.

‘She is no a lady born like you,’ said Jean, hastily; ‘but in my way of
thinking that’s a reason the more why she should learn.’

‘But no when she is so young,’ said Margaret. ‘Her little face is all
moving, and the bairn herself trembling. It’s her nerves I’m thinking
of,’ said the sick girl, with a deprecating smile; at which, however,
Jean only shook her head, as she looked at the child’s glowing, startled
face.

‘Nerves! I never heard of nerves in her kith or kin,’ said the woman;
and then added, ‘You may speak to Isabel about nerves, Margaret; she’s
been greeting about the house like an infant, and tells me “naething,”
when I asks what ails her. It’s to her you should speak.’

Margaret looked at her sister across the table, and shook her head. ‘You
all take your own way,’ she said, with a touch of sadness, ‘though you
say it is to please me. I am thankful beyond measure that you care for
the kirk and for prayer, but little Mary might be as well if she was
left with me. We are great friends. And, Isabel, you’ll make your bonnie
eyes red, but you’ll no give up a hard thought or a hasty word; and yet
that would be worth more than miracles. Jamie, come and tell me what has
happened to-day on the hill.’

‘Me!’ said Jamie, looking up with his mouth full of porridge, and his
eyes large with wonder. ‘There’s never naething happens till me.’

‘Is that a way to answer when Margaret speaks to you?’ cried his mother.
‘But he’ll never learn manners--never, whatever you do. I think whiles
he’s no better than a natural born.’

‘But he knows every creature on the hill, and every bird on the trees,’
said Margaret, ‘and is never cruel to one of them. That’s grand manners.
He’s good to everything God has made. Jamie, did you see the minister
to-day?’

‘Hunting flowers on the hill,’ said Jamie promptly, thrusting away his
thick matted white hair from his round, staring, wondering eyes.

‘So mony great things going on at his very side, and him gathering a
wheen useless flowers! And it was well seen on him,’ she cried; ‘there
was Mr. Fraser of the Langholm and Mr. Wood on the other side of the
hill, that took it a’ upon themselves; though Ailie’s in our parish, and
a’ the stir. And our ain minister without a word to say! I’ve ay said he
was ower much taken up with his flowers, and his fancies; no, but what
I think it would be a far better thing for Isabel----’

‘Nothing about me, if you please,’ said Isabel, flashing into sudden
wrath; and then she gave Margaret a guilty look. As for Margaret she but
shook her head softly once more.

‘He is not so sure in his own mind,’ she said ‘that is what makes him
silent. Mr. Wood and Mr. Fraser are different kind of men. Some can just
believe without more ado, and some have to think first. Isabel, if
you’re ready, it is the bairns’ bedtime, and we can go.’

‘You’re awfu’ anxious to-night about the bairns,’ said Jean, still
irritable and displeased.

‘She is so little,’ said Margaret, stooping over little Mary to kiss
her. ‘If you would but believe me, and no take her down yonder. How can
she understand at her age? and she has nerves as well as Isabel. Will
you promise me not to think to-night? but just to fall asleep, little
Mary, as soon as you’ve said your prayers?’

‘I’ll pray for you, Margaret,’ cried the child, with the tremulous tones
of excitement, ‘and you’ll, maybe, be well and strong like Ailie the
morn’s morn.’

‘Then wait till morning comes,’ said Margaret, ‘for to-night I am
wearied, and I want to rest.’

Thus they separated, the sisters with their candles retiring to their
little parlour--the lights in the window of which were watched by more
than one watcher from far, with tender thoughts of the young inmates.
But Margaret was weary--too weary--for the counsel she had to give. She
went to bed leaving Isabel, the latest of all the house, sitting alone,
in a fever of thought which she could now indulge for the first time.
The lonely little window sent a feeble ray upon the hill-side road, and
was visible on the Loch to such a late hour as seldom witnessed any
window alight in Loch Diarmid. There were many causes for the tumult of
fancies which absorbed the girl and made her forget the progress of
time. The very air around her was full of excitement; her sister for
anything she knew might the next day rise healed from her bed. She
herself might be free as the winds to choose her own life; and it was at
the very climax and crisis of this life that Isabel stood.




CHAPTER III


It will have been guessed by what has been already said that one of the
periodical fits of religious excitement to which every primitive country
is liable, had lately taken place in the parish of Loch Diarmid. There
had been a general quickening of popular interest in religious matters.
Religion had taken a new meaning to the fervid primitive mind. A
miraculous world, all glowing with undeveloped forces, rose up around
them. The end might be that the Lord would come, bringing confusion to
His enemies and triumph to His people, or, at least, that such
supernatural endowments would come as should make poor men and peasant
maidens the reformers of the world. At the first outset there was
something splendid, something exalting, in this hope. And the strange
story which a short time before had run round the Loch as by magic gave
it instant confirmation. Ailie Macfarlane, a young woman known to be
hopelessly ill, who had been visited, and sympathised with, and
ministered to by all the kindly gossips of the parish--whose parents had
been condoled with on her approaching loss--and whose symptoms were as
well known to the community as their several and individual sufferings,
had risen up all at once from her sick bed and gone out on a journey at
the call of faith. The astonished parish had suddenly encountered her
afoot upon its public roads, yet knew with a certainty beyond all power
of deception, that the day before she had been a helpless sufferer.

Such a wonder had an immense effect upon the popular mind, as indeed a
thoroughly ascertained fact of the kind would have had anywhere. Whether
or not she might turn out a prophetess, as she claimed to be, this
wonderful preliminary was certain. She had risen up and walked like the
paralytic in the Gospel, in defiance of all physicians and human means
of cure, and was visible among them in restored health and activity a
creature who had been on the verge of the grave. Throughout the whole
country, great and small, without exception, were occupied by Ailie
Macfarlane’s wonderful recovery. Nobody could deny, and nobody could
explain it.

The thrill of strange expectation which thus ran through the parish was,
as may be supposed, more strongly felt by Margaret’s friends than by any
other of the rustic neighbours. The strength of their love for her
tempted them almost to accuse, and certainly to reproach, the wilful
sufferer who would not avail herself of her known favour with Heaven and
be healed like the other. It was this certainty that set her sister free
(or at least, so she thought,) to entertain visions of happiness to
herself independent of Margaret. On the very next evening, when the sun
had set upon the loch, but still lingered red upon the further hills,
Isabel resumed the subject which had occupied her thoughts. Could she do
it? Sunder her future life from her past at a leap--set herself free
from all the present claims upon her--could it be possible to do it? or,
on the other hand, would she, could she give up her love?

Isabel’s brain had grown giddy by dint of thinking, when suddenly she
heard a little gravel thrown on the corner of the parlour window--the
signal that she was waited for without. She threw her shawl round her
hastily, drawing it over her head, and stole out. Margaret was not there
to be disturbed. She had gone to her place of prayer some time before,
and was still in that silent nook, with the sweet rowan-tree blossoms
scenting the air round her. Isabel stole out with a certain guilty sense
that her errand was not one to be approved by any beholder. Some way up,
beyond the cottage, among the great bushes of whims and heather,
lingered a single figure. Few passengers cared to wade among that thick
undergrowth; here and there it was treacherous moss in which the foot
sank; here and there a young birch waved its brown locks pathetically in
the evening breeze; and the heather-bushes, with their gnarled stalks
like miniature oaks, were not very pleasant to walk among. But the two
who had appointed their meeting there did not care for the heather
stalks, or the trembling moss. They were thinking but of themselves--or,
rather, as they would have said, of each other.

‘Have you thought it all over?’ said the young man, eagerly. ‘Isabel,
you cannot mean to cast me off. Don’t tell me so; don’t look as if you
could be so cruel. I could bear anything for your sake, but that I could
not bear.’

This was said in haste and excitement, after a long pause; for Isabel
had nothing to say to her lover, but went on with him in silence,
turning her face away from his anxious looks.

‘I never thought of casting you off,’ said Isabel; ‘how could that be?
If we were to be parted for ever and ever, I could never cast you off;
but I canna do it, Horace--I canna do it. You must ask me no more.’

‘Why cannot you do it?’ he said. ‘What is to prevent you? I have told
you everything, Isabel. They will say I am too young to marry if I ask
them at home--and they don’t know you. If my mother knew my Isabel, it
would be different. And if we were but married, it would be different.
Once married, everything would come right. And what matter is it if we
were married in private or in public? It is always in a house here in
Scotland. I only ask that one little sacrifice. Is it much to ask when I
am ready to do anything--everything----’

‘But there is nothing for you to do,’ said Isabel; ‘it would all be me.
You are making me deceive them now. I never said what was not true all
my life before; and now I’m false to everybody--everybody but you.’

‘It would put an end to that if you would do what I say,’ cried the
young man. ‘We should go away; and then when we came back, everybody
would know. I am asking so little--only to have it done privately. We
would come back, and all would be right. My people would make up their
minds to it when they could not help it; and yours----’

‘Ah!’ cried Isabel, ‘to speak to me of running away and being married,
and my Margaret--my only sister, lying dying! How can you name such a
thing to me?’

‘Now, Isabel,’ said young Stapylton, ‘this is nonsense, you know. If you
break my heart, what good will that do to her? It will not cure her.
Besides,’ he added with suppressed scorn, ‘you know yourself--you have
told me--that Margaret might be well if she liked. She is very good,
isn’t she? better than that girl whom you are all talking of--and she
ought to be cured. If she keeps herself ill on purpose, it is cruel and
selfish of her. Why should she spoil your life and her own too?’

‘How dare you speak like that of my sister?’ said Isabel, with blazing
eyes, ‘and her so near the angels? Oh, Horace, you would never think
_so_ of Margaret if you were really, really caring for me.’

‘If you can doubt me, I have no more to say,’ said the young man; and
then they started apart, and the briefest lovers’ quarrel ensued--a
quarrel soon made up in the inevitable, universal way, strengthening the
position of the one who attacked, and weakening that of the defender.
Stapylton drew Isabel’s hand through his arm when she gave it him in
reconciliation and led her through the heather farther and farther from
home. ‘You are never to utter such cruel words any more,’ he said, ‘nor
so much as to think them. Am not I ready to give up everything for you?
The old Hall, and my father’s favour, and all I might have if I pleased.
It is different from Loch Diarmid, Isabel; but I care for nothing but
you; and you will not make the least little sacrifice for me.’

‘I would make any sacrifice--any sacrifice; there is nothing so hard but
I would try to do it--for you, Horace,’ said the girl with tears.

‘And yet you will not come away with me for two or three days, and be
made my wife! What are you afraid of, Isabel? Can you not trust me? Do
you think I would harm you? Tell me what it is you fear?’

‘Fear!’ said Isabel surprised, lifting her eyes to his face. ‘When you
are with me what can I fear?’

‘Then why don’t you trust me?’ said the young fellow, with a sudden
flush on his face.

‘I trust you as I trust myself,’ said Isabel. ‘Could I care for anyone
as I care for you, and not trust him? It is my own folk I am thinking
of. I cannot deceive my own folk. Oh, dinna ask me, Horace, and I will
do anything else in the world.’

‘Your own folk!’ said Horace, with a little contempt; ‘Jean Campbell,
perhaps, that is not good enough to be your housekeeper. I am deceiving
father and mother for you, Isabel, and I never grumble. To think of your
father’s widow in comparison with me!’

‘I think of Margaret,’ said Isabel, ‘my twin sister. Oh, never ask me
more! It would kill my Margaret. Me to deceive her that has been part of
herself. Oh, Horace, dinna ask me! I would die to please you; but not
even to please you, would I hurt her. I canna do it. I would sooner
die!’

Young Stapylton’s face grew red all over with a passionate, furious
colour: then he drew his breath hard and restrained himself. For one
moment he grasped Isabel’s hand, which rested on his arm, with a firm
pressure, which would have made her scream had she been less startled.
Then he loosed it with a strange little laugh which was not pleasant to
hear.

‘Isabel.’ he said, ‘if you don’t make me hate Margaret before all’s
over, it will be a wonder. Do you forget what you have told me? or do
you think I forget? Would I ever ask you to leave your sister, if things
were here just as they are in other places? Have you not told me that
the age of miracles has come back; and don’t I know that there is nobody
in the place so good as Margaret? Why should she die when the rest
recover? It stands to reason; and you are not going to spend all your
lives together, you two. Of course you will marry some time: and so will
she--when she is better,’ the young man added after a pause.

‘Margaret marry? Never, never!’ cried Isabel ‘You cannot understand; and
you dinna say that as if you believed it either--but like a scoffer,’
she added, ‘that thinks nothing is true.’

‘I think my Isabel is true,’ said the young man, ‘and I believe anything
she says.’

‘Oh, no me, no me,’ cried Isabel, with tears, ‘dinna call _me_ true. I
am false to everybody belonging to me. I am cheating and deceiving all
my own folk. I am true to nobody but you.’

‘After all, that is the most important,’ said Stapylton, with an attempt
at playfulness. ‘Isabel, am not I the first now? the first to be
loved--the first to be considered? I know you are to me.’

Isabel made a long pause. She wandered on with him, for they were
walking all the time, with her eyes bent on the sweet grass she trod
under foot and the heather-bushes among which they picked their way.
After a long interval a ‘No’ dropped from her lips. ‘No,’ she went on,
shaking her head slowly. ‘I must not think of you first--not now. I must
think of Margaret first. Dinna be angry, Horace. It is but a year since
I saw you first, and she has been my best friend and my dearest for
twenty years. And you are well and strong, and she is dying; and you
have plenty of friends, and she has no one but me. I must think of her
before you.’

‘Then you don’t love me!’ cried the young man. ‘I see how it is: you
have a liking for me--that is all. You are pleased to keep a man
dangling about at your orders, waiting for you, as they say here, at
kirk and market; but as for _loving_--giving up all and following your
husband--you’re not the girl for that, Isabel. I see: you’re Scotch, and
you’re cautious; and you won’t take one step till you see what is to be
the next; and as for speaking of love----’

Isabel looked up at him nastily with indignant, tender eyes, wounded to
the heart. She drew her hand out from his arm. Not love him, and yet
deceive her friends for him and leave Margaret alone the long, slow
evening through! The colour rose violent and hot to her face. But she
was very proud as well as very warm in her affections. She would not
explain. Turning away from him as she disengaged her hand, her eye
suddenly caught the dreary blank of the moor around them, from which the
light had faded. Never before in all their rambles had they wandered so
far. The cottage was invisible, as well as every other habitation. The
night was falling. It was time already for the family supper, and
Margaret, all alone, would be waiting for her sister, while Isabel was
far from home, in the dark on the moor, with only her lover beside her.
A little cry of consternation burst from the girl’s lips. Had she had
wings, she could scarcely have gone back quick enough to save Margaret
from anxiety and wonder, and perhaps fear. Her companion saw her start,
her painful surprise, and forgot his upbraiding. He seized her hand
again suddenly, and drew it almost with a degree of force within his
arm.

‘Isabel,’ he cried energetically, ‘it’s night, and nobody will see us;
and we are as near to Loch Goil as we are to the Glebe--I think nearer,
Isabel. It’s but to go on, now you are so far on your way. There shall
be nothing to worry, nothing to frighten you. Let us go down on the
other side, and get it over. It is not a great matter, if you love me.
Margaret will be anxious, but we’ll send her word to-morrow. I know a
good woman to take you to. I know a quiet way down, where nobody will
see us. Isabel, Isabel! you don’t mean to say you’re angry. You are not
afraid of me?’

‘I’m feared for no man,’ cried Isabel, drawing herself away from him,
and turning back with startled, gleaming eyes. She made no further
answer, but folded her shawl close round her, and turned her back upon
her eager, pleading lover. He had to follow her as she made her way with
nervous haste back to the highroad which crossed the hill. Even then he
did not think his cause lost. The night was growing dark, and he had
brought her far from home, and the road led both ways. He went after
her, entreating, praying, using every art he knew.

‘They will be anxious now as they can be,’ he said; ‘they will think we
have gone; they will be better pleased to see you come back to-morrow my
wife than to have all the parish telling that you and I were here so
long on the hill. Isabel, it will be all to do over again, anxiety and
everything. The worst is over. Come; an hour’s walk will bring us to
Loch Goil.’

He put his hand on her arm as he spoke. They were on the verge of the
highroad, which by this time was scarcely distinguishable from the moor.
He had followed closely across the heather, as she sped along, keeping
by her side, urging his anxious arguments. Now, for the first time, he
put out his hand, drawing her closer to him, drawing her the other way,
on the downward path which led to another life. Isabel snatched herself
away and stood facing him for a moment. It was a moment of breathless
suspense to both. He knew her so little that he believed she might still
decide for him; and held his breath in expectation: while the indignant,
proud, tender creature stood looking at him, uncertain whether she
should part with him for ever, or throw herself into his arms in a
momentary storm of love and upbraiding, making him understand at once
and for ever the possibilities and impossibilities in her nature. She
stood lingering for that moment of doubt--and then she turned suddenly
from him without a word, and drew her shawl over her head and fled
homewards like a deer or a child of the hills. While he stood still in
consternation he heard her rapid feet scattering the pebbles on the
road, going as fast as a mountain-stream. The young man made a plunge
after her; but she was already far in advance, and had known the path
all her life, and there was neither credit nor advantage in pursuing a
runaway maiden. He came to a dead pause and ground his teeth in vexation
and disappointment. He was passionately ‘in love’ with the girl, and yet
he called her names in the bitterness of his mortified feelings. ‘I’ll
have her yet, all the same, whether she will or no,’ he said with fury,
as he found himself thus left in the lurch. As for Isabel, she took no
time to think. She knew every step of the road along which she rushed in
the darkness. Her heart was hot and burned within her; if it was anger,
if it was excitement, if it was misery, she had no time to decide. The
only thing before her was to get home. If she could but reach home, and
find Margaret tranquil, as was her wont, then the whole matter should be
ended for ever. This was what Isabel was thinking, so far as she could
be said to think at all.

When she came at last within sight of the dim light in the kitchen
window, a low lattice, out of which the lamp was faintly shining like a
glowworm on the ground, Isabel’s flying pace was quickened. She could
distinguish already some vague outlines of more than one figure round
the door. Had the occasion or her feelings been less urgent, she would
have paused to recover her breath, to put back her shawl, and end her
precipitate course with an attempt at decorum; but she was too much
agitated now to think of any such precautions. They heard her rapid feet
as she began to hear the soft sound of their voices in the summer gloom;
and Jean Campbell had but time to call out ‘Who goes there? is it oor
Isabel?’--when the girl rushed into the midst of them, breathless, her
hair ruffled by the shawl, her face glowing with the unusual exercise,
her eyes shining. She rushed into the midst of the little group,
catching hold of her stepmother in her agitation to stop herself in her
headlong course. And the watchers started and gave place to her with a
mixture of joy and terror.

‘Lassie, you’ll have me down!’ cried Jean Campbell, staggering under the
sudden clutch, ‘but it’s you, God be praised. Here’s your sister half
out of her mind. And where have you been?’

‘Is Margaret there?’ cried the panting Isabel. ‘And it so late, and the
dew falling--and all my fault! But I did not mean it--I never thought it
was so late; and then we got astray on the hill; and I’ve run every step
of the way,’ cried Isabel hastily.

‘And what were you doing on the hill?’ began the stepmother. Margaret
interrupted the expostulation. She put her hand out in the darkness to
her sister. ‘I am not able to stand longer--now Isabel’s come,’ she
said; ‘I am wearied and faint with waiting--say nothing to-night--the
morn will be a new day.’

‘Aye,’ said Jean Campbell to herself, when the sisters had gone in; ‘the
morn’s ay a new day; but them that’s lightheaded and thoughtless the
night will be thoughtless the morn. Naething is to be counted on with a
young lass. She’ll hae her fling though she’s a lady born. And Margaret
there, puir thing, that never kent what it was to have the life dancing
in her bits of veins! I’m, maybe, hard on her mysel,’ Jean murmured,
pausing a moment at the closed door of the parlour. There was a sound of
weeping from within, which touched her heart. She listened, hesitating
whether to interfere. ‘If she had twa-three words to say to her lad on
the hill, there was nae harm in that,’ said Jean to herself; and moved
by recollections, she knocked at the door. ‘Lasses, ten’s chappit,’ she
said. ‘The bairns are in their beds, and Margaret should ay be bedded as
soon as the bairns. As for _her_ there, likely she meant nae harm. Let
her gang to her bed and say her prayers, and we’ll think on’t nae mair.’

‘I hope my own sister may say what she likes,’ said Isabel, starting up
and turning on the good-natured mediator with her bright eyes full of
tears. ‘There is nobody has a right to meddle between Margaret and me.’

‘Oh, hush, hush,’ said Margaret, ‘you two. I am not finding fault with
her--and she is not ungrateful to you. It is a thing will never happen
again.’

‘No--till the next time,’ said Jean Campbell, closing the parlour door
after her with rising irritation. ‘Am I a fool to mind what the silly
thing says?’ she said to herself, as she fastened the cottage door. Just
then the sound of another foot scattering the gravel on the road came to
her ear. With natural curiosity she reopened the door, leaving a little
chink by which she could see through. ‘I kent it was him,’ she said
triumphantly within herself. Though it was so dark, there was something
about young Stapylton’s appearance, as a stranger and foreigner, which
was instantly distinguishable to rural eyes. Jean looked on with keen
curiosity as he passed. He could not see her, nor could he perceive the
loophole through which her eyes watched him. To him the house was all
dark and silent, shut up in its usual tranquillity. He paused before it,
and inspected it all round, evidently with the idea that Isabel might be
lingering outside. When he saw the light in the parlour window, he
turned away with an exclamation of disgust, and shook his fist at the
house which contained his love. The astonished watcher could not hear
what he muttered to himself, nor divine what was the cause of his wrath;
but she threw the door open, and shook her fist at him in return, with
prompt resentment. ‘It’s a dark night for a long walk, Maister
Stapylton,’ Jean called out to him, with fierce satisfaction; ‘and
there’s an awfu’ ill bit down there where the burn’s broke the bank. Can
I len’ you a lantern till you’re past the burn?’

The young man quickened his steps, and went rambling on detaching the
stones down the rugged road with some inarticulate angry answer of which
Jean could make nothing. The disappointed wooer was in no very good
humour either with himself or the household, which he pictured to
himself must be laughing over his failure. Jean, for her part, put up
the bolt with demonstration when she had thus gratified her feelings.
The ‘lad’ whom his lass had left disconsolate on the hill, was fair game
in the eyes of the peasant woman, and the little matter was concluded
when he was thus sent angry and humbled away.

But it was not so in the parlour where Isabel was telling her story with
many tears. Margaret, whose mind had long been abstracted from all such
thoughts, listened with a curious mingling of interest and pain. That it
could ever have entered into the mind of her sister to leave her thus
suddenly, without warning, was an idea that filled her with
consternation. She was silent while the confession was being made,
confused as if a new world had suddenly opened up before her. Not a word
of reproof did Margaret say; but she listened like a creature in a
dream. Love!--was it love that could work so, that could be so pitiless?
The virgin soul awoke appalled, and looked out as upon a new earth. Even
Isabel did not know the effect her words produced. Her penitence fell
altogether short of the occasion. She was sorry for having listened,
sorry for having given patient ear for a moment to such a project, but
she was not utterly bewildered, like Margaret, to think that such a
project could be.

‘And he thought, and I thought,’ cried Isabel, alarmed by her sister’s
silence, ‘that you could never be long left when Ailie’s cured and well.
He would never have dreamed of it, but that he believed, like me----.
Oh, Margaret! it’s slow to come, but it’s coming, you’re sure it’s
coming? God would never forsake _you_.’

‘He will never forsake me,’ cried Margaret; ‘but, Bell, I cannot be
cured. That is not the Lord’s meaning for me. And if I had been well,
you would have run away and left me!’ she added, with a little natural
pang. Isabel could not encounter the wistful reproach in her eyes; she
threw herself down by her sister’s side, and hid her face in Margaret’s
dress.

‘If you had been well, you would not have minded,’ she sobbed: ‘if you
had been well, somebody would have been coming for _you_ as well as for
me.’

‘For me!’ said the sick girl--her voice was too soft for indignation,
too soft for reproach. ‘Yes,’ she said; after a pause, ‘the Bridegroom
is soon coming for me; I hear His step nearer and nearer every day. And,
Bell, I will not say a word. It is nature, they all tell me; I am not
blaming you.’

‘If you would blame me, if you would but be wild at me!’ cried Isabel,
weeping, ‘it wouldna be so hard to bear.’

Margaret bent down over the prostrate creature; she put her arms round
the pretty head, with all its brown locks disordered, and pressed her
own soft, faintly coloured cheek upon it, ‘It is but God that knows us
all, to the bottom of our hearts,’ she said, ‘and He is always the
kindest. We are all hard upon our neighbours, every one--even me that
should know better and am ay talking. But, Bell, it cannot be well for
him to tempt you; you should listen to him no more.’

‘I will never, never speak to him again!’ cried Isabel.

‘No that--not so much as that,’ said Margaret; ‘but he should not tempt
my Bell to what is not true.’

And then the penitent girl felt her sister’s kiss on her forehead, and
knew herself forgiven, and her fault passed over. She rose grateful and
relieved, and the weight floated off her mind. The only one with whom
the incident of the evening left any sting was the one who had most need
of love’s consolation--the sick girl who loved everybody, and whom even
God cast into the background, leaving her in the shade. Poor Margaret
went to her rest confused and stunned, not knowing what had befallen
her. All were preferred to her, both by man and by God.




CHAPTER IV


Next morning the household in the Glebe Cottage found itself solaced and
comforted from the excitement of the night. To Jean Campbell the
incident was commonplace; ‘No a thing to make a work about,’ she
acknowledged frankly; while even Isabel, except for a certain sense of
excitement and giddiness as she settled down to ordinary things,
comforted herself, like a child, that the matter was over, and that she
should hear no more of it.

When Mr. Lothian paid her his usual afternoon visit, he found the sick
girl, as usual, in her invalid chair, with her knitting in her hands.
Isabel had left the room only as he became visible on the road, and her
work lay in a little heap on the table. He cast a hasty look at it, even
at the moment when he greeted the other sister. That evidence of an
abrupt departure was of more consequence than it ought to have been to
the minister. He shook his head as he sat down by the abandoned work.

‘She need not have run away when she saw me coming,’ he said, with a
little sigh. ‘I could have said nothing to anger her, here.’

‘She did not mean it,’ said Margaret. ‘She is hasty, like a bairn. I am
afraid sometimes I have made too much a bairn of her. I have grown so
old myself, and she is so bonnie and young.’

‘Too bonnie and young,’ said the poor minister; and then he roused
himself to a sense of justice; ‘but not younger--nor bonnier either for
that matter--than you, my poor Margaret. It is your illness that makes
you feel a difference. I remember two years ago----’

‘I would rather forget that,’ said Margaret, with a faint blush. ‘It is
not illness, but death, that makes the difference, and sometimes I
wonder what will become of her when I’m gone. I feel as if I should
always want to take care of Bell, even in Heaven.’

‘It may be so permitted for aught we know,’ said Mr. Lothian.

He put out his hand, and took her wasted hand into his. The first fret
that had crossed it for years was on poor Margaret’s brow. To think of
her sister as happy eventually, when her own grave was green, was sweet
to the dying girl. But the conflict in Isabel’s mind now, of happiness
and self-sacrifice, was the hardest burden that had ever fallen on her
delicate spirit. It seemed to introduce an alien note in the soft
concords of the ending life.

‘Yes, whether or no,’ said Margaret, with a faint smile; ‘and I wish you
would preach to me now. I never get to the kirk with other folk. I am
growing a law to myself, I fear, instead of minding the true law. Speak
to me, for I’m wearied and cannot speak to myself.’

‘It is you that have taught me many a day,’ said the minister; and then
he paused, and that pang of pity with which the strong sometimes look on
the weak thrilled through him.

‘Margaret,’ he said, ‘you know I cannot speak to you as many can; your
sickness comes from the hand of God, and you have never repined against
Him. What comes from the clash and contradiction of human feelings is a
different burden to bear. It seems a feature in our life that we must go
against each other daily, whether we will or no. There is no happiness
but has trouble in its train. What is joy to her is grief to you. What
would be comfort to you, would sicken me and--aye, I will be just to
him--one other, with disappointment and pain. The lassie that was
married in the village yesterday made her mother’s heart bleed; but her
own would have suffered as sorely, and so would the lad’s if she had not
married. What can we say? It is not trouble of God’s sending, but the
complications of human nature. He looks down from Heaven and beholds and
tries the children of men, as says the Scripture. It is the one that
bears the heat and the cold, the long calm and the fierce tempest, that
is Christ’s soldier; but the cold and the heat, and the calm and the
storm, are all natural--not punishments of God, but necessities of the
world. We have to brace our minds up to them. It’s a cross world, and
its conditions must be borne--I do not say because God sends them of
first purpose and will--but always for Christ’s sake.’

In the silence that followed, and which Mr. Lothian made no attempt to
disturb, sounds from without made themselves heard by degrees. There
came an echo of steps on the road, and voices at the door. Margaret gave
no heed, being absorbed in her own thoughts. But the minister, more used
to the popular commotion, roused himself, and listened anxiously. Then
there was a little parley outside. Mr. Lothian hurried out, to stay, if
possible, the visit which he had foreseen. The group at the door was as
great a contrast as could be imagined to the calm of the scene he had
just left. Isabel stood, with flushed cheeks and clasped hands, before
the parlour-door, half barring the entrance, half showing the way. Jean
Campbell stood at the door of the kitchen, holding up her hands in
excitement, and partial terror. ‘Eh, if it could be--if it could but
be!’ she cried. ‘Our Margaret, that was ay a child of God! Oh, Ailie
woman, think weel before you disturb her. I’ll no have her
disturbed!--but if it was the will of God----’

‘It’s the will of God that brings me here,’ said the young prophetess of
Loch Diarmid. She was scarcely older than the patient to whom she came.
She stood on the threshold of the house, in simple, ordinary dress a
fair Lowland beauty, with abundant light locks, a delicate, half-hectic
colour, and blue eyes _à fleur de tête_, which, in her excitement,
seemed absolutely to project from her face. They were the visionary,
translucent eyes, not giving out, but absorbing, the light, which so
often reveal the character of a mystic and enthusiast. She was no
deceiver, it was evident, but believed in her own mission with a fervour
which, to some degree, overcame the incredulity of every sympathetic
spectator. She moved forward, with that strange directness which only
primitive nature or passion ever shows, to the door of the room in which
Margaret was. She took no notice of Isabel who stood in the way. ‘It’s
in the name of the Lord,’ said the inspired creature. Even the minister,
who stood there ready to defend the repose of his friend against all
comers, gave way before her with a strange thrill of something like
faith. It might be--it was possible--God had employed such messengers
before now. A creature spotless, and perfect, and young, in the first
glow of love, and energy, and enthusiasm, could any human thing be
nearer the angels? And the angels were God’s messengers. Mr. Lothian
stood back subdued--his own convictions and strong sense standing him in
no stead against the excitement of the moment. Had he opposed her he
would have felt guilty. He stood back against the wall and let her pass.
‘If it is of God,’ he said to himself. And she went in as Miriam might
have gone with her timbrels--like a figure in a triumphant procession,
going on to miracle and wonder in the name of the lord.

Behind her, however, came one who roused no such sentiments in the mind
of the minister. This was a man evidently not of Ailie’s rank, nor in
any way resembling her, except in the flush of excitement which in him
might have gone to any length of fanaticism. His mouth was closely shut;
the lines of his face were rigid and strained; his eyes burned with a
cloudy fire. Passion, which might almost be insanity, was in his look.
The pair were as unlike as if one had been an errant angel astray from
Heaven, and the other one of the rebels who fell from them with Lucifer.
The minister started and grew red, and put up his hand to oppose the
further progress of this unexpected visitor; although it was already
very well known that ‘Saul was among the prophets,’ and ‘Mr. John,’
heretofore of a very different character, had entered their ranks.

‘Mr. John, this is no place for you,’ said Mr. Lothian. ‘You have no
need that I should tell you that. This is no place for you.’

‘Wherever God’s work is to be done is the place for me,’ was the answer;
and the speaker pressed on. He was a powerful man, and a scuffle there
might have been fatal to the dying girl; but yet the minister confronted
him, and put his hand on his breast.

‘It is not the work of God to disturb his dying saint,’ said Mr.
Lothian. ‘She’ll soon be free and in your way no longer. Let her go in
peace.’

‘Go?’ cried Mr. John, ‘dying?--never while God is faithful that
promised. Stand back and let us in; it is to save her life.’

But it was not this or any more likely reason; it was simply to prevent
the noise of contradiction and controversy from reaching Margaret, that
Mr. Lothian yielded. He himself followed the stranger into the room, and
Isabel crept after him. By this time the sun had set, and the daylight
began to wane. Perhaps Margaret had guessed what the interruption meant.
She was sitting as she had been when Mr. Lothian left her, with her
hands crossed upon her breast, motionless, her eyes fixed upon the soft
obscurity that gleamed in through the window. She turned her head half
round as they all entered. ‘Ailie, is it you?’ she said. There was
scarcely any surprise in her voice. ‘I heard what had happened, and I
knew you would be sure to come to me.’

Her perfect quiet, the composure of her attitude, the calm face gleaming
like something cut in marble against the grey wall, had a certain effect
even upon the young enthusiast. She made a pause ere she began, and her
companion, who had been standing behind her, came round to her right
hand, and gazed eagerly upon Margaret’s face. The moment she saw him,
Margaret, too, was disturbed in her composure; she started and gave a
little cry and raised herself up in her chair; while, as for the
intruder, he pressed forward upon her with eyes that burned in their
deep sockets and an air of restrained passion, before which for the
moment the fever of Ailie’s inspiration sank into the shade.

‘Has it come to this?’ he said. ‘And I was never told, never called to
her! But, thanks be to God, we are still in time, and the prayer of
faith will save----’

‘Mr. John,’ said Margaret, raising herself erect, ‘this is no place for
you. Why should you be told or called to me? If Ailie has anything to
say I am content to hear her; but you and me are best apart.’

‘Why should we be best apart,’ cried Mr. John, ‘when you know what my
heart is? No, I will not go. Be silent all of you; how dare you
interfere between her and me? I have come with one of God’s handmaidens
to save her life.’

‘Let him be,’ said Ailie. ‘We’ve come here together that we may hold the
Lord to his promise. Margret Diarmid, I’ve come to bid you rise up and
be strong as I am. O woman! can you lie there and see the world lying in
wickedness, and no find it in your heart to throw off the bonds of
Satan? Why should ye lie and suffer there? It’s no doctors you want,
it’s faith you want. We a’ ken you’re a child of God. Margret, hearken
to me. I was like you, I was in my bed, worse than you, and pondered and
pondered and kept silence till my heart burned. I said to mysel why was
it? and the Lord taught me it was Satan and no His will. Do you think I
lay there one day mair? I listened to the voice that was in my ears. I
thought no more of flesh and blood; I rose up and here I am. Margret
Diarmid, I command you to rise up in the name of the Lord!’

They all gathered close, with an uncontrollable thrill of excitement, to
listen to this appeal and to see the result of it. Isabel fell on her
knees beside her sister, and gazed at her to see the change, if any
came. Ailie, with her hands raised over Margaret’s head, and her face
lifted to Heaven, waited for her answer. John Diarmid by her side, with
a look of wilder passion still, hung over the group in speechless
excitement. Even Jean Campbell behind stood wringing her hands, feeling
her heart beat and her temples throb. Was it the Spirit of God that was
about to come, shaking the homely room as by a whirlwind? There was a
pause of awful stillness during which nobody spoke. When Margaret
answered, the bystanders started and looked at each other. The calm tone
of her voice fell upon their excited nerves like something from a
different world.

‘I hear _your_ voice, Ailie,’ said Margaret, with the softness of a
whisper, though her words fell quite distinct and clear upon their ears,
‘but I hear no voice within. Can you not believe that God may deal one
way with you and another with me?’

‘God has no stepbairns,’ cried Ailie. ‘Does He love me better than you?
O neebors! on your knees--on your knees! Will He no remember His ain
word that’s passed to us and canna be recalled. What two or three agree
to ask is granted afore we speak. It’s no His consent, but her’s we have
to seek!’

Then she threw herself on her knees, with upturned face and hands
stretched out. They all sank down around her, filling the darkening room
with kneeling figures. Even the minister, whose office was thus taken
out of his hands, knelt down behind the girl who took such wild
authority upon her, and bent his face into his clasped hands, moved, as
only the prevailing excitement of the time could have moved him, by that
faint tinge of possibility which was in the air. Isabel, kneeling too,
took her sister’s hand, and watched her with an intense gaze which
seemed to penetrate to her very heart.

No one in the room except Margaret escaped the contagion of that strange
emotion. She had fallen back into her chair in weakness, and gazed at
them with calm and pitiful looks, like those of an angel. Hers was the
only heart that beat no faster. She lay and looked at them all as a
creature past all the storms of life might be supposed to look at those
still tossing on its stormy tide. She was not roused by the appeal made
to her faith, nor overwhelmed by the fervour of the prayers, the tears,
the exclamations, the bewildered, breathless expectations by which she
was surrounded. She put one arm softly round Isabel, who knelt by her
side, and with her other hand took hold of Ailie’s, which was stretched
up over her in entreaty. There seemed to be something mesmeric in the
touch of those cool, soft fingers. Ailie’s outstretched arms fell; her
eyes turned to Margaret’s face; a strange wonder came over her
countenance; her voice died away as if surprise had extinguished it; and
then there was again another pause, full of fate.

‘Ailie, God hears,’ said the sick girl; ‘and He will give me life; but
not here, and not now. You’re not to think your prayers refused. I’m
near to the gate and I can hear the message sent. It says, “Aye, she
shall be saved; aye, she shall rise up; not in earth, but in Heaven."’

‘No,’ said Ailie, passionately; ‘it’s no a true spirit of prophecy; it’s
an evil spirit come to tempt you. No. O ye of little faith, wherefore do
ye doubt? Is the Lord to be vexed for ever with this generation that
will not believe? Listen to His voice. Arise, arise! shake off the bonds
of Satan. Rise up, and stand upon your feet. Margaret, let not God’s
servants plead in vain. Oh, hearken to mo while I plead with you,
harder, far harder, than I have to plead with God. Why will ye die, O
house of Israel? Rise up and live: I command you in the name of the
Lord!’

‘Oh, if you would but try! O my Maggie, will you try?’ sobbed Isabel,
clasping her sister closer, and gazing with supplication beyond words in
her face.

And the minister lifted his face from his hands, and looked at her; and
little Mary, who had stolen in, came forward like a little wandering
spirit, and threw herself, with a cry, on Margaret’s shoulder, in a wild
attempt to raise her up. This last effort of childish passion was more
than the sick girl could bear. She turned round upon them all with a
wondering burst of patience and impatience.

‘Is there no one to understand?’ she said, with a plaintive cry, and
drew her hands away and covered her face with them in a kind of despair.
Even her own had turned, as it were, against her. Her bodily strength
gave way; her heart failed her; no response woke in her mind to those
wild addresses. That they should leave her alone, alone, was all she
longed for--only to be left in quiet, to be at peace.

Then the minister stood up, and took Ailie by the arm. She was shivering
and trembling with the revulsion, worn out with her excitement. Her
moment of ‘power’ was over.

‘You can do no more here,’ he said, with a thrill in his voice which
betrayed how much he himself had been moved. She is worn out, and you
are worn out, and here there is no more to say. Ailie, for God’s sake
come with me, and disturb her no more.’

‘O friends, it’s the wiles of Satan,’ said Ailie. ‘Oh, to think he
should be there! Margret--Margret, how can I leave you to perish! Let me
stay by her day and night, and wrestle with Satan for his prey!’

‘You will come with me,’ said Mr. Lothian, firmly, and then the
passionate creature burst into choking sobs and tears. Poor Margaret,
whose thread of life was worn so thin, whose weakness could so ill bear
the struggle, sat in the gathering twilight, and looked on while the
prophetess, who had come to heal her, was led, like an exhausted child,
from her presence. She thought she was alone, but a sound close to her
startled her back again into a little flush of agitation. ‘I am worn and
weaker,’ she said, driven to the limit of her powers. ‘Oh, will ye let
me be? Whoever you are, leave me and my life to God!’

‘Margaret, it is I,’ said a deep voice close to her ear. ‘Why will you
die? Do you know my heart will die with you, and my last hope? Am I to
live to curse God? or will you live--will you live, and save a sinful
soul? Margaret, because I have been ill to you have pity on me!’

Weak as she was, Margaret started from her seat. ‘John Diarmid,’ she
cried, ‘how dare ye speak to me? Am I the one to bear the blame of your
blessing or your misery? If you had the heart of a man, you would go
miles and miles rather than enter here.’

‘I would lie at your door like a dog,’ said the man in his passion,
‘rather than be banished like this; but I’ll go away to the ends of the
earth, Margaret, Margaret, if you’ll live, and not die!’

‘I’ll do as the Lord pleases,’ said the poor girl, stretching out her
feeble hands in the darkness for some support. She was worn out. Before
her persecutor could reach her she had sunk upon the floor with a
faintness which soon reached the length of unconsciousness. The women,
rushing in at his cry, carried her to her bed. She had not fainted to be
out of suffering; her heart throbbed against her breast, as though
struggling to be free. Poor Margaret! The human passion was more hard to
meet than all that went before.




CHAPTER V


Mr. John, whose appearance at the Glebe had thus moved all the
spectators, had been for a long time the embodiment of pleasure-seeking
and dissipation to the country-side. His had been the _jeunesse
orageuse_, which, as a pleasant discipline and beginning of life, had
ceased to be realised on this side of the Channel. A quaint old house on
the eastern side of the Loch, and a few hill-sides which had been in the
family for centuries, were all his patrimony; but his mother had
transmitted a moderate fortune to her only child, which he had got rid
of in his younger days in gayer scenes than could be found on the Loch.
When he had returned perforce, all his money being spent, to his
long-neglected home, Mr. John for some years had taken rank as the Don
Giovanni of the district. He had been so far prudent or fortunate as
never to be the object of any unusually grave scandal. Miss Catherine,
rigid as she was in morality, had not been compelled to shut her doors
against her own connection, but had been able to doubt, to extenuate, to
find excuses for him. ‘Left to his own will when he was but a callant,’
she would say, ‘flattered and served hand and foot by them that led him
away. If I am to shut my doors on the poor lad, where would he get a
word of advice, or be shown the error of his ways?’

It was thus that Mr. John, pursuing his pleasures with such daring as
was possible, preserved still a shred of superficial character. And then
the time had come when vulgar dissipation palled on the man. For a year
or two he had partially recovered himself, and turned to a better life;
and during this interval it was that he became acquainted with Margaret.
Mr. John, whose family was unimpeachable, was a great man to Captain
Duncan, whose slender connection with the aristocracy of the district
was built more upon the gentility of his first wife than even on his
commission. And no doubt a rude attempt at matchmaking had been planned
by the old soldier. As for the two principally concerned, Margaret, who
knew little of his previous character, had been naturally attracted by
the best-bred and best-mannered man she had ever been brought into
contact with; and he, a passionate soul in his way, seeking emotion and
excitement through all his pleasures, had been suddenly seized upon by
the pure and visionary creature, whose life was to him as a new
revelation. Yet, notwithstanding his sense of her utter purity,
notwithstanding his love for her, and the new germ of moral improvement
within him, the habits of his former life, and the contempt in which he
held her upstart father, had led him, strange as it may seem, to
entertain dishonourable designs towards the spotless girl, who looked up
to him as a higher type of manhood than any she had yet met with.
Captain Duncan, hot enough in all that concerned his honour, had somehow
discovered his suitor’s base meaning, and expelled him from his house
with all the violence that belonged to his character. When Margaret
became aware of the storm that raged round--when she found her lover
shut out from the place, and herself forbidden to think of him, a brief
tumult rose in her maidenly bosom. She might have resisted even, for her
sense of justice was strong, and she had begun to love, had fiery Duncan
been left to manage matters in his own way. But Mr. Lothian had stepped
in with his good sense, and Jean Campbell, homely as she was, with his
support, had brought her woman’s wit to work on the question. The two
between them brought one of Mr. John’s victims quietly by night to tell
her miserable story. Other miserable stories poured upon Margaret’s ear
when the ice was broken. She gave but one cry, and went away from them
and shut herself up in her own room. Nothing was said to her of any
intended disrespect to herself. If she ever guessed the existence of
such a horror, she never betrayed it to mortal ear; but the parish knew
well enough why it was that Mr. John had the door of the house shut upon
him, and was curtsied to by Miss Catherine with awful grandeur when they
met at the church-door.

This sealed his fate so far as the Loch was concerned. His own race and
class abandoned him to the devil and all his angels, to whom accordingly
he devoted himself for some months with renewed spirit. But disgust had
entered his heart; he had seen better things, and his soul had begun to
move uneasily within him. Then commenced the religious movement which
stirred the parish of Loch Diarmid. Mr. John, dreary, mournful, and
alone, was one of the first to be moved by it. Here was, indeed, a
religion worth having, one that held out to him the hope of immediate
reward, the highest advantage that flesh and blood could hope for,
deliverance from sickness, miraculous strength, favour, and power. He
went into it with all the fervour of his nature. He was converted with
much rejoicing on the one hand, and blackest painting of all his former
errors on the other, as is natural in such cases. From penitence he went
on rapidly to the highest grace, to own the inspiration of Ailie, and to
believe in her and in himself. It was a curious process altogether, and
yet it was not so inconsistent with nature as might have been supposed.

It had been by his special solicitation that this visit to the Glebe was
made. Margaret had been ill he knew, but he did not know how ill; and
with a man’s natural touch of vanity, he had imagined the illness to be
caused partly at least by separation from himself. He had the fullest
confidence in Ailie’s powers, and the most entire belief that what he
and she together prayed for, in the passionate faith which they shared,
would be done for them by God; but he had also in his secret heart some
hope that the mere sight of him, a changed and converted man, would do
much for Margaret. When he saw her, not tenderly touched by sentimental
illness, but worn to the edge of the grave by consuming disease, it
would be difficult to describe the shock he sustained. His passion for
her revived to its fullest extent; and she was dying--dying, before his
eyes. And God had promised in any case, however desperate, to hear the
prayer of faith. Yet there she lay, calm, steadfast, content, not eager
to be saved, crushing down the excitement at its height with the touch
of her soft, cool hand. The agitation which possessed him almost rose to
frenzy. He was angry with Ailie, the young leader of his faith, for
requiring food and rest, and desiring to go home, instead of ‘wrestling
in prayer’ along with him on the grassy bank beneath the Glebe. His
vehemence was so extreme, that Ailie herself was moved to reprove it.
‘Brother,’ she said, ‘you’re not thinking of God’s glory, you’re
thinking of Margaret’s life. Your mind’s gone wild for love of her. Set
up no idols in your heart.’

‘Love!’ cried Mr John, ‘and between her and me!--that will never be. But
she must not die. She is a child of God. She is so beloved, I think half
the country would follow after her. Shall we lose that great advantage
to the Lord’s cause? You have been my teacher in the way of life, must I
be yours now?’

‘Aye,’ said Ailie,’ if the Lord has given you something to say.’

It was Mr. Lothian, who had followed them down the hill, who heard this
strange conversation. Mr. John’s face changed, as was usual with all the
gifted. A kind of spasm passed over him. ‘Hear the word of the Lord,’ he
cried; ‘hear and obey! Will you go back to your selfish rest, and eat
your selfish bread, and let His saint die? Is it not written, He that
asketh receiveth. Shall we submit to be foiled by Satan? He is not an
unjust judge, nor you a vengeful woman, and will you do less than He did
to save a life? What is a night on the heather, a night on the hill, to
the loss of that blessed creature? Never will she be bride of man,’ he
cried, with a groan,--‘never bride of mine nor friend of mine that you
say I’m mad with love. Our fathers lived in caves of the earth, and were
hunted like beasts for the sake of the truth--and will we refuse to
watch a night for the salvation of a soul? Could not ye watch with me
one night? We are two together that put our trust in Him, and the Lord
will remember His promise when we pray.’

‘I will pray in my own chamber,’ cried Ailie. ‘O, John Diarmid, I ken
you’re a man of God! but your face frightens me, and your voice
frightens me. I cannot bide with you on the hill. Lord, Lord, is it Thy
will? I’ll watch for her--I’ll pray for her--I’ll give half my life for
Margret; but I darena bide here.’

‘My sins find me out,’ said Mr. John;’ you are afraid of me, Ailie. You
think it is the old man that speaks, and not the new.’

‘No,’ said Ailie, controlling herself, ‘I canna fear my brother. I know
you are a man of God--but oh, will not the Lord’s purpose be served if
we pray at home? He’s as near in a chamber as on the hill. Let us not
speak nor waste our strength. Let us bend our minds to it, and pray for
our sister going along this weary way. It will be a holy way,’ cried the
girl, solemnly marching along, with her young elastic figure drawn up,
her hands clasped, and her eyes raised to the sky, ‘if we make every
step in prayer. Oh, hear us; oh, open Thy hands to us; oh, save her,
dear Lord!’

Mr. Lothian, when he told this tale, would melt almost into tears. ‘She
was an innocent creature,’ the minister would say. He followed them
softly, unseen, with a man’s secret dread of the reformed sinner, ready
to protect Ailie if she should want protection, and saw her move swiftly
and silent along the path, never stumbling, never faltering, with her
clasped hands and her eyes raised to Heaven. Broken words of prayer
fell from her lips as she went on. As for the dark shadow by her side,
the minister took less note of that. But he never forgot their joint
prayer, sometimes rising to a mutual outburst of supplication as they
went before him over the silent road. Mr. John’s spirit was rending
itself with wild throes of pain, and at the same time satisfying itself
with the violent strain of strongest emotion. Thus they went on until
Ailie reached her mother’s cottage at Lochhead. And the silent follower
behind them had been praying too. When he went into the Manse, which was
too quiet, too lonely for that name, the minister asked himself, would
it all be without avail; would God turn a deaf ear, though the very lion
and lamb together pleaded with Him for a blessing--though the sinner
became pure, and the suffering walked by faith? And for his part he
rounded with a sigh the excitement of the evening, and opened the Bible
on his table--that Bible within whose pages there are still so many
prayers unanswered, waiting till God’s time shall come.

Next morning Mr. Lothian had the events of the night brought before him
from another point of view. It was hard upon the minister that his
house, of all houses in the parish, should be the one to shelter his
young rival--a man in himself totally uncongenial to him. But so it was;
he had incautiously received a guest whom he found it impossible to send
away; and Mr. Lothian had been compelled to look on and see the young
fellow all but win the prize on which his own heart had been set for so
long. How the trifling youth could have caught Isabel’s fancy was a
mystery to the good man; but naturally such a fact gave to every foolish
word he uttered a double importance in his host’s jealous and wondering
eyes.

‘I hear there was a prayer-meeting--or something--last night up at the
Glebe,’ said Stapylton. ‘Was it effectual, do you know?’

‘What do you mean by effectual?’ said the minister, gravely.

‘Oh, I thought it might have had one of two effects,’ said the young man
with careless contempt. ‘It might have cured the patient, you know; or
at least, so they say. And they might have prayed her to death, which I
should think the most likely, for my part.’

‘I did not know you were so well informed,’ said Mr. Lothian, who was in
no conciliatory mood.

‘Oh, yes, I am posted up,’ said Stapylton, with a vain laugh, for which
his companion could have knocked him down. ‘I think they will find it
difficult to cure consumption; but the greater the difficulty the
greater the miracle. It shows, at least, that they are not afraid.’

‘It shows they are not impostors, as you seem to think them,’ said the
minister with some heat.

‘Oh, dear, no, not impostors,’ said Stapylton; ‘not any more than other
people. We are all impostors, I suppose, more or less.’

‘Your views are too advanced for our rural minds,’ said Mr. Lothian,
growing more and more angry in spite of himself. ‘We don’t understand
them. Impostors are rare in this country-side.’

‘Oh, yes, I believe you,’ said Stapylton insolently. ‘Do you mean to say
you put any faith in that praying crew? Did you think their shouting and
bawling could do any good to that poor, consumptive creature----’

‘Is it Margaret Diarmid you are speaking of?’ said the minister; and the
men paused and looked in each other’s faces. Stapylton had gone further
than he meant to go. Isabel’s sister was nothing to him, though he loved
Isabel in his selfish way. He had no respect for Margaret as a woman, or
as a sick woman; he had no appreciation of her character. She was to him
simply a poor, consumptive creature, whom he would be glad to have
killed or cured out of his way. If Isabel were ever his, she should not
long retain any foolish devotion to her sister. Therefore he could not
understand the scorn and indignation of Mr. Lothian’s eyes.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I would not hurt her sister’s feelings by calling her
so, you know. We’re all impostors, as I said. But still you know that is
what the girl is, all the same.’

The minister rose from the table impatiently, and made no answer. And
this was the man to whom Isabel had given her heart!




CHAPTER VI


‘I am saying nothing against Ailie,’ said Jean Campbell, ‘no a word. Our
Margaret upholds her as a God-fearing lass; but maybe she was going
beyond her tether when she came praying over our Margaret. No, it was of
nae avail. I never expected it for my part.’

‘It maun have been want of faith,’ said one of the eager spiritual
gossips who had flocked around Jean to hear the news. ‘Human nature is
so full o’ short-comings. We’ve a’ looked up to her for her godly life;
but the Lord will not put up with our idols. You’ve made an idol o’
Margaret Diarmid, asking her prayers; but now she’s weighed and found
wanting. It’s been lack of faith.’

‘I dinna see how that can be,’ said another. ‘She’s won us a’ blessings
morning and night. I’ve seen Heaven written plain in her face if ever it
was written in a face in this world. Na; it must have been that they
were lukewarm in their prayers.’

‘Hoots! they canna ay win,’ said a third neighbour; ‘if a’ the world was
to be full of miracles where would us living folk be?’

‘But it’ll be a sair discouragement to the spread of the truth,’ said
Mary White of the Mill, who had spoken first. ‘The enemy will cry out
sore, like as if it was a triumph. And it’s ill for them of feeble minds
to hear that Margaret Diarmid hasn’t faith to be saved, or Ailie
Macfarlane lost her power.’

‘I would like to see the one that has more faith than our Margaret,’
said Jean Campbell, wounded in her tenderest point. ‘As for Ailie she’s
a wonderful lass, but she’s upsetting with her prophet’s ways. If it had
been the Lord’s will, would He have bided for Ailie to ask Him? Would He
no have done it for our Margret that has kent Him longer and followed
Him better? I’m no pretending to ken mysel--but if ever there was a
saint of God it’s our Margret; and naebody need say onything else to
me.’

‘There’s naebody in our parish would try,’ cried Jenny Spence, who was a
connection. ‘As for Ailie Macfarlane she canna be said rightly to belong
to the parish. It’s weel kent she was brought up in the Rue, and a’ her
friends bide down by the Loch-end. I canna see ony reason for following
after her, and thinking licht of our ain.’

‘Did you never hear, ye silly women,’ said a voice over their heads,
‘that a prophet has nae honour in his ain country? Bring in the new
light, and cast out the wisdom that dwells among us: that’s ay been the
world’s opinion since lang before it was divided into parishes. As for
this poor lassie you make such a work about, she’s hysterical, and
that’s the explanation of her cure and her prophesying; no that the
creature means ill. She’s an innocent creature, so far as I can see _the
noo_; but how lang her innocence will last if this goes on----’

‘Nae doubt you’re a fine authority, Maister Galbraith,’ said Mary, with
a toss of her head; ‘you that believe in naething, neither spirit nor
deevil, like the auld Sadducees. It’s grand to come and get lessons from
you.’

‘I believe in more than you believe in, Mary, my woman,’ said the
schoolmaster, who had interrupted the talk; ‘but I’ll no go into
controversy. Jean Campbell, I’m wanting a word with you, if you’ll come
inbye as you’re passing, after a’ this important business is done; you
were ay good at settling the affairs of the parish--but if I were you I
would leave the other world in peace till you win there.’

‘It’s much he kens about the ither world,’ said Mary White as the
schoolmaster passed on. ‘Poor auld haverel, with his Latin and his
poetry, that never could get a kirk, even in the auld Moderate times.’

The gossip thus came to an abrupt termination, and Jean Campbell went on
her way without further pause to the schoolhouse door.

‘Weel, Jean, my woman,’ said the maister, ‘how’s a’ with ye? It’s a
bonnie day.’

‘After a’ the saft weather we’ve had,’ said Jean, making the
conventional answer which was expected of her. ‘And we’re a’ very weel
but Margret, who’s no long for this world, Maister Galbraith, though
it’s sair news to tell.’

‘No a word about that,’ said the maister, hastily, ‘and a’ the fools in
the country-side living and thriving! I will not speak of what I cannot
understand. It’s no about her I’m wanting you, but about bonnie Isabel.’

‘About Isabel?’ said Jean, wondering: and to herself she added, ‘Eh, if
the auld fuil’s head should be turned like the lave with that bit
lassie!’ a mental exclamation which was unexpectedly brought to light,
as it were, by one of the Dominie’s broad sudden smiles.

‘I might be her grandfather,’ he said; ‘and whiles I feel as if I was
grandfather to a’ these heedless things. You’ve had your ain ado, Jean,
my woman, with the Captain’s family. Before ever you married Duncan, you
mind what I said.’

‘I’m no complaining,’ said Jean, with intense and lofty pride.

‘No,’ said the maister, ‘you’re no the one to complain. You’re too
spirity for that, and too proud. And Margaret for one knows what you’ve
done; but as for me, that have ay taken an interest in them, I’m wanting
you to do more than ever, and I know you’ll no be asked in vain.’

‘You had ay a skilfu’ tongue, maister.’ said Jean: ‘you were ay one to
while the bird off the tree, when you liket to try. What is’t that’s
coming noo?’

Upon which the maister laughed softly, for it was a point upon which he
was susceptible to flattery.

‘It’s no laughing matter,’ he said; ‘you’ll give me your best attention,
Jean. You and me are not the folk to meddle with love and lovers in
their wooings and nonsense; but there are times when the like of us must
interfere. Bonnie Isabel is but a bairn. I know she is Margaret’s twin,
but there’s a wonderful difference between them for all that; and yon
English lad at the Manse will beguile the lass if we do not take the
better heed, you and me.’

‘Beguile our Isabel!’ said Jean, scornfully. ‘You ken heaps of things,
maister, but no the heart of the like of her. If it was a lass out of
the village, I wouldna say: but our Isabel’s a lady born.’

‘I stand corrected,’ said the maister; ‘you’re a woman of sense, Jean
Campbell, and know better than me. I cannot express myself like you, but
this was what I meant--that if we did not take heed, you and me, bonnie
Isabel would be led further than she means to go; and the world, that is
always an ill-thinking world, would make out a case of appearances
against her. I’ve seen her with yon lad upon the hill----’

‘And what’s about that?’ said Jean; ‘is a lass never to speak to a lad
but afore witnesses? And what’s the use of being young if you come to
that? The lads have maist of the good things in this world; if a bonnie
lass is no to have the upper hand o’ them and gie their heartstrings a
bit wring when she has the power to do it. Na, na, maister, if you want
her to let the lad be----’

‘She’s ta’en a good grip of some other heartstrings I know,’ said the
maister, ‘more’s the pity. You’ve no bowels, you women. If it was but
his heart that was in question, I do not say I would make much moan; but
it is her credit, which is more to the purpose. Do not fire up at me; he
was near running off with her the other night. You ask me how I know? Is
not every secret word of your mouth or thought of your heart proclaimed
on the housetops? If she were to go a step with him, it would be a sore
heart for Margaret, and long would Isabel rue the day.’

‘I’ll not believe it,’ said Jean. ‘She’s prouder than the Marchioness,
if you come to that. Her give way to a lad! I wouldna believe it if it
was sworn to by a’ the Loch. She has mair spirit than that.’

‘Love’s blind,’ said the maister, with a melting tone in his harsh old
voice; ‘it thinks no evil. He swears to her he means her well, and I
would not say he did not mean well; but the day she’s that lad’s wife
will be an ill day for Isabel, and all the more if she runs off with
him. Whisht! and hear me out. They have quarrelled to-day, but to-morrow
they will be ‘greed again--and she has no mother. I trust her, Jean
Campbell, to you.’

‘I dinna believe it, no a word,’ said Jean, rising from her chair: but I
ay do my best. No but Isabel is a sair handful, with her pride and her
hasty ways. It’s the flower of a’ that the Lord winna spare. Eh,
maister, it’s mair than I can understand.’

‘No a word of that,’ said the Dominie, ‘or you and me will criticise our
Maker, and that mustna be. He must have some reason. Thae birds’ eggs
are your Jamie’s, Jean. He’s a strange callant, awfu’ slow at his
lessons, and awfu’ gleg on the hill.’

‘The hill will do him little good, maister,’ said Jean, discontented,
‘if you would but make him mind his book! It would be a terrible cross
to me if he didna get on with his education, and him the Captain’s son.’

‘He’ll never mind his book,’ said the Dominie, promptly, ‘no more than
his father before him. Make him a sodger if you please, like Duncan. If
ye insist on schools and college, he’ll never be wiser than a stickit
minister, like me.’

‘Eh, but it’s ower muckle learning with you!’ cried Jean, bewildered by
the smile with which the maister described his condition. She had so
described him herself, not without a touch of contempt. But at the
present moment her mortification about her boy was swallowed up in
reverential terror for the man who thus appreciated his own misfortunes.
‘It’s because my Jamie’s ower useful with the birds’ eggs, and the trash
o’ flowers they are ay gathering,’ Jean said to herself, as she went
home; ‘but I’ll send him where he’ll be well kept to his book, if the
maister speaks like that to his mother again.’




CHAPTER VII


Excitement had once more sunk into calm at the Glebe Cottage; but
Margaret, though she had recovered her composure, had suffered so much
from the shock as to be unable to leave her bed next day.

On the other side of the wall sat Isabel trying in vain to occupy
herself with her usual work. Her sister’s state had filled all her
thoughts the previous night. Hopes and fears about her recovery, awe and
excitement about the means to be used, a terrible strain of suspense,
and blank of disappointment when all was over, had withdrawn Isabel’s
mind entirely from her own affairs.

All at once she started, and sprang to her feet, changed as by a spell.
She stood for a moment, irresolute, between her seat and the window.
Then, by degrees, her whole expression altered. Her lip melted into the
ghost of a smile, light came back to her pretty eyes; after a pause of
consideration, she sat down once more by the wall. ‘I couldna
leave Margaret,’ she said to herself. And she took up her work
again,and worked briskly for about thirty seconds. Then she
paused--listened--smiled. Ah! there could be no doubt about it. That
was the accidental pebble that had struck the window. That was the soft,
faint whistle, the merest whisper of a call which breathed on the air.
He had come back, after all. It changed the entire current of Isabel’s
thoughts in a moment. She had no further desire to go out, no impatience
of her loneliness. These sounds had reconciled her to life and to
herself. He was there, that was enough. She had even a pleasure in
thinking he would have his walk and his waiting for nothing. She
reminded herself of her anger and of her duty. Nothing in the world
could induce her to leave Margaret. Her closed lips took a demure
expression, as she sat and listened with a certain mischievous content.
The blank which had seemed so intolerable and so permanent a few minutes
before, flushed now with a thousand rosy colours. It was easy to deny
herself, it was rather a pleasure than a pain to remain alone, so long
as she knew that he watched for her and that she had not been forsaken.

Half an hour passed, and twice Isabel had heard, with a widening of the
smile or half-smile round her mouth, the familiar pebble on the window,
when Jean Campbell came suddenly into the room where she was sitting. It
had once occurred to Isabel, with some anxiety, that Margaret alone, in
her retirement, lying still in the unbroken silence, might hear these
sounds and interpret them aright; but she thought of no one else, and
cared for no one else, in her youthful pride. Her stepmother’s entrance
disturbed her and moved her to impatience. It was seldom Jean came so
far without special invitation, and never to join Isabel, who was less
gentle, less patient, and had a much warmer, hastier temper than
Margaret. She came in, however, on this occasion without so much, the
girl angrily remarked, ‘as a knock at the door.’ Isabel stopped working
and raised her astonished eyes to Jean with a demonstrative surprise.
‘Did you want anything?’ she asked, in her pretty, clear, but, so far as
poor Jean was concerned, unsympathetic voice.

‘I wanted to see if you were here,’ said Jean, with a mixture of
softness and resentment.

‘Where could I be but here,’ said Isabel, ‘and Margaret lying in her
bed? Maybe you thought I was out enjoying myself,’ she added, with a
certain pique; and just at that moment, borne upon a stronger gust than
usual, came a bewildering echo of the distant whistle. In spite of
herself she changed colour a little, and clutched at her work, as if to
shut out the sound.

‘Eh, listen!’ said Jean; ‘what’s that? I’ve heard it near an hour about
the house. I hope it’s nae ill-doer waiting about to watch for an open
door.’

To this unsuitable accusation Isabel listened very demurely, returning
to her work. The idea amused her, and converted the half-suppressed
irritation with which she was too often in the habit of addressing Jean
Campbell, to a certain equally repressed sense of fun. As for Jean, she
looked suspiciously at her companion, and continued--

‘There’s mair ways of stealing than one. It might be some lad that would
never meddle with siller or gold; but there’s things mair precious than
siller or gold--eh, Isabel, my woman!’ cried honest Jean, with a thrill
of true feeling in her voice.

‘What are you speaking of?’ said Isabel, coldly. ‘To hear you, folk
would think you had some meaning. There’s little to steal at the Glebe,
if that’s what you are thinking. Most likely it’s your son Jamie,
wasting his time on the moor instead of learning his lessons. You need
not be feared for him.’

‘I’m no feared for my Jamie,’ cried Jean, indignant. ‘He’s your father’s
son as well as mine, Isabel, though you’re so proud. He’s your brother,
and maybe the time will come when you’ll be glad to mind that. If I
could think,’ she added, suddenly changing her tactics and making a
direct attack, ‘that you had the heart to keep your lad waiting on the
hill, and our Margret in her bed! Eh, and there’s the proof,’ she added,
as an indiscreet pebble at that moment glanced upon the window. ‘I said
it, but I could not think it--the like of this from you!’

Isabel’s cheeks flushed scarlet. She had been full of a great burst of
indignation when this sudden evidence against her struck her ear and
checked her utterance. To be sure she was in no way to blame, but yet
appearances were against her, and her indignant self-defence was shorn
of its fullness.

‘I have nothing to do with it,’ she cried; ‘I’ve sat by Margaret’s
bedside the whole day. How am I to tell what folk may do outside? It’s
no concern of mine. And you’ve no business to meddle with me,’ cried the
girl, with hot unwilling tears.

‘Isabel,’ cried Jean, with solemnity, ‘you think very little of me. I’m
no a lady like you, though I was your father’s wife; but I’m the oldest
woman in the house, and I ken mair than you do, aye, or Margaret either.
There was ane that warned me that I should do my duty to you and speak
out. It would be easier for me to hold my tongue. It’s ay the easiest to
hold your tongue; but ane that is your friend----’

‘I know who that is,’ cried Isabel, with flashing eyes, ‘and I think he
might have known I could guide myself, and would have no meddling from
you!’

‘Na, you didna ken who it was,’ said her stepmother; ‘it was ane that
has kent you all your days; and it’s no that he has any cause to be
jealous like him you’re thinking o’. Eh, that other ane! Poor man! it
makes my heart sair to look in his face. A man that might ken
better--and no a thought in his head but how to please a lassie’s
heedless eye.’

‘There is many a thought in his head,’ cried Isabel, ‘I’ll not have you
speak of my friends. Let me alone. I’m sitting listening if Margaret
cries on me, and thinking of nobody. If the best man in the world was
there, i would not go to the window to look at him; but don’t torment
me, or I cannot tell what I may do.’

‘I’ll no be threatened,’ said Jean, with equal spirit. ‘and I’ll say
what’s in my heart to say. If you go on with that English lad it’ll be
to your destruction, Isabel. I was warned to say it, and I’ll say
it--like it or not, as you please. When I have a burden on my mind, it’s
no you that will stop me. If you take up with the lad at the Manse, the
English lad----’

‘Mr. Lothian will disapprove,’ said Isabel, with a toss of her head.

‘I’ve nothing ado with Mr. Lothian,’ she said. ‘I’m no speaking from
him. You’ll rue the day, Isabel. I’m no for putting a lass in a prison
and forbidding her to speak to a man. Would I mind if it was a’ in play?
I was ance a young lass mysel. But yon lad, he’s in earnest. And if he
beguiles you to listen to him, you’ll rue the day!’

Isabel had risen to her feet in indignation, and was about to reply,
when a faint call from Margaret interrupted the combatants. Probably
Jean had raised her voice unduly, though neither of them were aware of
it. It was Isabel Margaret called, and ‘Let _her_ come too,’ added the
invalid. This was how they generally described to each other their
father’s wife. The two paused abashed, and went into the little room
behind. Margaret had raised herself up on her pillows, and sat erect,
with a flush on her cheeks. The excitement of the previous night had not
yet died away. Its effect was to give her the feverish beauty which
belongs to her complaint. She had her small Bible clasped between her
two white worn hands, as she had been reading it. ‘Come in,’ she said,
‘come in,’ holding out her hand to Jean, who lingered at the door.
Though she was so beautiful in her weakness, it was death that was in
Margaret’s face.

‘I want to speak to you both,’ she said; ‘why will ye quarrel, you two,
the moment I’m away?’

‘We were not quarrelling,’ said Isabel, turning her back upon her
stepmother.

‘Na,’ added Jean, in explanation; ‘it was nae quarrel. It was me that
was speaking. I’m no a lady born like you; but I’m the Captain’s widow,
and a woman of experience, and I will not hold my tongue and see a young
lass fall into trouble. Margaret, it’s no meaning to vex you; but she’s
aye keeping on a troke and a kindness with that English lad.’

Isabel turned round with hasty wrath and flushed cheeks; but her
resentment was useless. She caught her sister’s eye, to whom she could
never make any false pretences; and suddenly bent down her head, and hid
her face. To Margaret she had no defence to make, even though at this
moment she was without blame.

‘Then it is him I hear on the hill,’ said Margaret. ‘Isabel, go and
bring him in to speak to me.’

‘Bring him in--here?’ asked both the bystanders in a breath, aghast at
the command. The amazement of their tone, and the glance they cast round
the little room, brought a slight additional colour to Margaret’s cheek.

‘Bring him here,’ she repeated; ‘I’ve gone so far on my way that I’m
free to do what I please. I cannot seek him out or stop him on the road.
Isabel, go and bring him in to me.’

Isabel, who had grown suddenly pale and begun to tremble, hesitated to
obey. ‘O my Maggie!’ she said, clasping her hands; and in her
desperation she turned to her stepmother with an appealing glance. Jean
was at her wits’ end, divided between lively dislike and repugnance to
‘the English lad,’ and that absolute reverence for Margaret which made
it difficult to resist any of her wishes.

‘He’s no worthy,’ she said, with trembling eagerness; ‘he’s no fit to
come into this chamber and speak face to face with the like of you. Let
me gang and speak to him. We mustna be ower anxious; he’s but coortin’
like the other lads. It’s no as if him and Isabel had given each other
their troth. It’s but a diversion, like a’ the rest. I’ll speak to him
canny, and send him away.’

‘It’s no diversion,’ said Isabel, hotly, under her breath. Margaret sat
in the abstraction of her weakness between the two who were so warm with
life and all its emotions, clasping her little Bible in her hands.

‘No,’ she said, softly; ‘you mistake Bell. She is not like one of the
lasses at Lochhead, to meet him and speak to him for diversion, as you
say. It’s different. And there’s none to guard her but me. You’re very
good--you’ve always been good to us both. Don’t be angry if she’s
impatient. She’s but young,’ Margaret went on, with a pathetic smile and
her eyes fixed on Jean, who by this time was crying without restraint;
‘when she knows more of the world, she’ll see that you’re a good woman
and have ever been a help and comfort to her and me. But I am mother and
sister and all to Isabel as long as I live; and I’ll no live long, and I
would like to speak a word to him. Bell, you must dry your eyes and
bring the young man to me.’

‘I’ll do what you bid me, if it was to break my heart,’ said the weeping
Isabel.

Margaret made no reply. She knew that Isabel was perfectly sincere, and
yet she knew that the flutter in the girl’s bosom was not for her sister
but her lover. While Isabel stole slowly, reluctantly away, Margaret sat
propped among her pillows, watching with soft eyes. She was herself so
much beyond the world--so ready to go; so far on her way, as she herself
expressed it, that the tumult of feeling in her sister’s bosom appeared
to her almost like the baby flutterings of childhood. But Jean, whose
experience was of a different kind, stood looking after the girl with
mingled indignation and sympathy.

‘It’s hard on her,’ said the stepmother. ‘You ken an awfu’ deal mair
than me, Margret; but you dinna see it’s hard upon her as I do: though I
could never forgive her thinking of anything serious, and you so ill. We
maun a’ hae our little diversion,’ Jean added, after a pause. ‘It’s but
that. It couldna be marrying and giving in marriage the lass was
thinking of, and you so far from well.’

‘Would it not be more unkind if it was mere diversion?’ said Margaret.

‘Na,’ said Jean quickly, ‘a lass like a bairn must whiles have the play.
We’re a’ the better o’t. And Isabel meant nae mair. She’s thoughtless
whiles, but she has a tender heart. You canna believe she was planning
out her life and you lying suffering here?’

‘She’s so young,’ said Margaret, though a momentary contraction passed
over her face. It was meet that Isabel’s life should be planned out
before she was left alone in the world.

Isabel for her part went very slowly to the door, and looked up and down
the road, to cheat her own conscience into the belief that she was
obeying her sister. She took a few steps round the house in the wrong
direction to look for the watcher, and went back to the door with a
relieved heart, not having seen him. Her heart was not detached from
her first love, but she had been much shaken in her belief in him at
their last meeting; and though she denied indignantly that it was
‘diversion,’ she trembled to bring Stapylton to the length of an
interview with Margaret, thereby binding him and herself for ever. So
Isabel thought in her simplicity. ‘It would be as bad as being married,’
she said to herself; and she had no desire to be married. All that her
heart asked could be given by those chance meetings, by the sweet sense
of being loved, the charm of the tender secret which was between the
two. To go any further at such a moment would have shocked and startled
the girl; and what was to be done if she brought him to Margaret, but
that the most serious consequences might follow. She was incapable of
‘diverting herself,’ as Jean thought, but yet had no inclination to
quicken the pace of life, or rush upon facts. Serious existence looked
still distant and far off, and Isabel approached it with tender delay,
with soft wistfulness and reluctance. It would come to that eventually,
no doubt. But why should Horace, why should Margaret, be so impatient
now?

Isabel stood at the door, and her flushed face cooled in the evening
air, and the beating of her heart grew less loud; but she could not see
her lover on the road. ‘He must have gone away back, if he was ever
there,’ she said, when she returned to Margaret’s room, or ‘maybe it was
but the peeweep on the hill.’

‘It was nae peeweep,’ said Jean Campbell, turning round; but she was
charitable enough to say no more, when she saw the look of anxiety on
Isabel’s face.

‘If he’s gone there is no more to be said,’ said Margaret; and then she
sighed. ‘It is not because I’m going,’ she added, with a smile, as it
were correcting herself, ‘but because I would fain put myself in God’s
place for my bonnie Bell; as if He did not love her more than I can--as
if she were not safest with him!’

And then poor Isabel, full of remorse, bent down her head upon her
sister’s outstretched hands. Could she trust Margaret, perfect as she
was, to see all her thoughts; all the fancies that rose in her mind as
God did? Jean Campbell, whose homely mind was free of these
complications, withdrew at this point, drying her eyes and shaking her
head.

‘And she’s nae aulder than Isabel!’ said the humble stepmother. It was
the most pathetic commentary that could have been made.




CHAPTER VIII


‘I would not have thought,’ said Miss Catherine, looking steadily at
young Stapylton, who had gone to pay her a visit, ‘that the farming over
the hill was worth so long study. They must be wearying for you at
home.’

‘There are more things than the farming,’ said Horace; ‘there is the
grouse, for instance, and it will soon be September. The folks at home
have to make up their mind to it. A man is not like a girl.’

‘The Lord forbid!’ said Miss Catherine, ‘or fathers and mothers would
have little comfort of their lives. I hope there’s a pleasant young
sister to keep them company at home.’

‘Oh, there are three girls, thank you,’ said young Stapylton,
carelessly, ‘they are jolly enough. It’s against my principles to be
always turning up at the Hall. What is the good of being young if one is
not to have a little freedom? I suppose I shall settle down some time
like my father. It’s very respectable and all that, but it’s not
amusing. Women never can understand a man. You think we should be tied
down to all the old cut-and-dry habits like yourselves.’

‘No,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘it is not to be expected we should
understand you. We are creatures of a lower class, as is well known. But
still you know the very dogs come to a kind of comprehension of their
masters. I would think the Hall and the neighbours you have known all
your days, and the hunting and such like, would have as many charms as
Mr. Lothian and the grouse. It’s but a poor sphere for you here.’

‘Well, I suppose so long as I am content, that is enough,’ said Horace,
with a feeling that he was being laughed at; and then he added, with an
attempt at sarcasm, ‘Besides there are a great many superior people
here; and this movement is very interesting to a student of human
nature, you know.’

‘And what does a student of human nature make of the movement?’ said
Miss Catherine, grimly, looking at the young fellow with her penetrating
grey eyes. He was not the blasé young man of the present day,
experienced in everything and weary of all. He was not sufficiently
polished for the soft sneer and universal derision now current among us,
but he was the first rough sketch of that accomplished personage; the
fashion had come in, or at least had reached to his level. But it was a
rough species of the art, and only good as an essay.

‘Well,’ said Horace, with a certain grandeur, an air which had often
imposed upon Isabel, who knew no better, ‘I suppose it is just one of
the ordinary religious swindles. But the simplicity of the people makes
it look better than usual, to begin with. And it is only beginning. One
can’t tell at first what follies such a business may fall into. The
woman is mad, I suppose; or else she has taken this way of thrusting
herself into notice. She is rather pretty, too. Somebody might be fool
enough to marry her, if she was taken up by the better class. As for the
men, I suppose they have some motive: ambition to be first among their
neighbours, or love of excitement, or something. It is like whisky; and
then it don’t lead to trouble as whisky does.’

Miss Catherine was much opposed to ‘the movement’ herself; but her soul
was moved within her by this speech.

‘Do you tell them your opinions as frankly at the Glebe?’ she said,
quietly; and her companion changed colour somewhat at the question.

‘Well, you know, the eldest girl is of the same way of thinking,’ he
said. ‘It is quite natural she should be. She is very ill, and she must
come to that, sooner or later: and then they all think it’s a chance for
her to get better. I don’t wonder, in the least, at Margaret. The
other--don’t know what to think,’ he added, with a little reluctance:
‘but, of course, one would not shock the feelings of two girls.’

‘That’s good of you,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘and I see the force of what
you say. Religion is what we must all come to, sooner or later. It’s a
very fine way of putting it, and shows a perception of character--But,
my young friend, is it right of you to turn your steps night after night
towards the Glebe? I am never at my west window in the evening, but I
see you with your face that way. They are gentlewomen by the mother’s
side, and no farther off than fifth cousins from the family at Ardallan:
but their father was only a trooper, and they have little siller. Would
your father be pleased with such a bride as Isabel for his heir? Not but
what she is fit for a duke,’ said Miss Catherine, warmly, once more
fixing her companion with her eye.

‘Bride?’ said the young man, blushing violently, and gazing at her,
surprised; and then, for the first time, his tone changed. ‘She is sweet
enough, and pretty enough, for a queen,’ he said; and then added--‘if
that were all!’ with a sigh.

‘Yes, but it is not all,’ said Miss Catherine, somewhat melted. ‘There
are many things to be taken into consideration. Old folk and young folk
have different notions; and unless your people know what you’re doing,
Mr. Horace, my advice would be that you should go no more to the Glebe.’

‘Oh, that’s all nonsense!’ said Horace, recovering himself. ‘Things have
not gone so far as that. Poor little thing! she wants some amusement;
her sister is always ill, and nobody with her but that woman. She is a
pretty little thing, and I like to talk to her; and so, it appears, does
she to me.’

‘And that is all?’ said Miss Catherine, with a return of the grimness to
her face.

‘That is all,’ said Horace, lightly, ‘we may chatter to each other I
hope now and then without going to the last extremity. I know what you
are going to say, that there is somebody else ready to step in, and that
I am standing in the way of her prospects.--Such prospects!--a man old
enough to be her father, with a humdrum Manse to offer her. She ought to
do better than that. In short, I am a defence to keep Mr. Lothian off,’
he added, with a laugh, which his high colour and the contraction of his
forehead belied. ‘Confound the old inquisitor!’ he was saying to
himself, ‘what has she to do with it--am I bound to tell her
everything?’ Miss Catherine’s looks grew blacker and blacker as she
listened.

‘You give a bonnie account of yourself,’ she said, ‘if you want nothing
but to chatter with her, how dare ye stand between her and an honest man
that loves her? When Margaret dies--and we all know that calamity cannot
be long averted--is it your will, for the sake of your amusement, that a
bonnie, tender creature should be left without friend or guide in the
world? Yes, I know what you think,’ said Miss Catherine, growing hot;
‘you think she’s so soft and sweet, that you can play as you please. But
mind what I say, you may go too far with Isabel; she is young, and
younger than she might be, but she is not of a light nature to be guided
by you. If you play her false, be it in one way, be it in another,
you’ll get your punishment. Now you have heard what I have to say, and
you can go on your own way, and take your own course, like all your
kind; but you’ve got warning of what will follow. And now, Mr. Horace
Stapylton,’ said Miss Catherine, rising and making him a stately
curtsey, ‘I am obliged to bid you good day.’

Horace started to his feet amazed beyond description by this dismissal.
‘I am shocked to have intruded upon you,’ he said, angrily; ‘I shall
take care never to repeat the infliction.’

‘That shall be as you please,’ said Miss Catherine, with another
curtsey, and the young man found himself with artful incaution to
Isabel, when despite all that had occurred, he succeeded in meeting her
‘by accident’ on the hill: ‘and all for your sake. You are getting out
of the room and out of the house almost before he recovered his
consciousness. ‘Old hag!’ he said to himself, ‘old Scotch cat!--venomous
old maid!’ as he walked down the avenue. But he was worsted
notwithstanding, and felt his defeat.

‘She turned me out of the house,’ he said, afterwards, ‘me into disgrace
with everybody. They upbraid me for following you, for taking up your
time, for keeping others away; and the folk at home write to ask if I am
never coming back. People look glum at me wherever I go for your sake,
and you will do nothing for me: I must say it is rather too bad.’

‘I would do anything for you,’ said Isabel. ‘I would not mind what all
the world might say. They might gloom at me, and welcome; what would I
care? anything but one thing, Horace--and that you know--you see--I
could not do.’

‘Which, of course, is the only thing I want,’ said the young man,
sullenly. ‘That is always the way with girls.’

‘And why should you want it so?’ said Isabel, eagerly. ‘We’re young, and
we can wait. If all your folk were ready and willing, could I leave my
Margaret? Horace, you know as well as I do she has been my comfort a’ my
days; there is not one like her far or near. If you think, as other folk
think, that Ailie is nearer God than our Margaret, oh, it shows how
little you know,’ cried Isabel, with the hot colour rushing over her
face; ‘and could I forsake her that has been like a mother to me? What
is love, if it’s like that?’

‘I don’t think you know what love means,’ said Horace: ‘it is to give up
all for one; it is to forsake father and mother--and your past life--and
your prospects, as people call them--and good sense and caution and
prudence, and all your Scotch qualities;--that is what love is, Isabel;
to think of nobody, and care for nobody, but one; to give all your
heart, and not a bit of it. I don’t ask you for a bit of it; I want you
all--every thought, every feeling. I want you to give up everybody and
come to me--to me!’ and here the young man opened his arms and turned to
her with a look of passion which startled the girl. She made a sudden
sidelong step beyond one of the great heather clumps before she
answered. The colour changed from red to pale on her face; but she kept
her eyes fixed on him, with a look of eagerness and wistfulness, trying
to penetrate beneath the surface and see his heart.

‘Horace,’ she said, softly, ‘you and me are different--a man and a girl
are different, I suppose. That is not what it is to me. It is something
that makes life better, and stronger, and sweeter. I’m fonder of
Margaret, I’m better to the bairns. Don’t turn away like that. It is
like wine,’ cried the girl, with light rising in her eyes; ‘it gives you
strength for all you have to do. You’re at your work, you’re minding
your house, you’re vexed and wearied and troubled--and lo, you give a
glance out of the window, and you see _him_ pass, and all your trouble
rolls away! That’s love to me. When you turn round and give me a smile,
it’s like wine,’ cried Isabel once more; ‘I feel it all about my
heart--I go back to my work, and something sings within me. I am neither
tired nor troubled more. That’s love to me! And the world’s bonnier and
the sky’s brighter,’ she went on faltering, ‘Oh, Horace, surely you know
what I mean?’

‘No, I don’t know what you mean,’ cried the young man, with a kind of
brutality. ‘I never understand your Scotch. If this is the sort of
figure I am to cut, making you devote yourself more to Margaret and the
bairns, as you call them, I had better take myself off, it would seem. A
fellow is not to lose the best days of his life for such a reward as
that.’

Isabel looked at him with but partial comprehension; her point of view
was more elevated than his, but yet it was limited, like his, to her own
side of the question. She looked at his clouded brow and averted face
with a woman’s first violent effort to enter into a state of feeling
which was the antipodes of her own. Slowly it dawned upon her that it
might be as just as her own though so different. She clasped her arms
round the slender white stem of a young birch-tree, and leant against
it, gazing at her lover with dreamy eyes.

‘Maybe it’s all true,’ she said, slowly, ‘both what I think and what you
think, Horace. It will break my heart, but I can bear it if that is
best. Go away into the world, and please your own folk--and I’ll wait
for you; I’ll wait all my life; I’ll wait years and years. Why should
you lose your best days for me? Oh, I see well it is neither just nor
right; and me that has so little to give! It’s a sin to keep you here,’
she continued, tears, unthought of, dropping from her eyes. ‘Loch
Diarmid comes natural to me, and folk forget--But go, Horace, and think
on me sometimes; and my heart will go with you; and if you should ever
come back you’ll find me waiting here.’

‘Isabel, this is all folly and nonsense,’ cried young Stapylton. ‘What
are you crying about? am I talking of going away? It is all very easy
to send a fellow off and make a fuss, or to keep him hanging on, and
kicking his heels among this confounded heather. Can’t you do what I
want you instead? it’s simple enough. What’s the good of living in
Scotland if you can’t get married how you please? If I were to go away I
might never come back. They’d keep fast hold of me at home, or they’d
pack me off somewhere out of reach; and you would change, and I might
change. Who can undertake what would happen? I don’t believe in comings
back. I should find you Mrs. Somebody or other with half a dozen----
Hallo, where are you going now?’

‘I’m going home,’ said Isabel, drying her tears indignantly. ‘It’s late,
and I cannot enter into such questions. I am not one to change; but, Mr.
Stapylton, if that’s your way of thinking it’s far best it should all
come to an end. I don’t want to be married. I will never leave my
sister. If you will have an answer yes or no, there’s your answer.
Never, never, if she should live a dozen years!--and God send she may
live a dozen years, and a dozen more to that!’ cried Isabel with a sob.
‘My Margaret, that never has a thought but for me! And to bid me run
away and shame the house, and break her heart--and to call it love!’
said the girl, with an outburst of tears.

She had come back to the birch and leant her pretty head upon the
graceful young tree, which waved its tender branches over her with a
curious sympathetic resemblance to her own drooping form, while her
lover drew near her slowly, his heart melting, though his temper was
still ruffled. He was going to her to take her in his arms, to whisper
his final arguments, to woo her with his breath on her cheek. At such a
moment it did not occur to the young man to look around him, to guard
against interruption; and, perhaps, in the soft twilight he could
scarcely have perceived the lonely personage who was winding with a
noiseless step among the heather, full of her own thoughts.

The dew was falling among the slender birches, and on the heather and
gorse--the wild gale underfoot filled the air with sweetness, and with
this soft perfume came the soft stir of silence, the breath of the great
quiet, which gave a musical tone to the atmosphere. The shadows were
falling over the loch and the hills; points of view that had been
visible one moment were invisible the next; and all at once, up in the
blue heavens, stars were revealing themselves, here and there one, like
lamps among the clouds. A night to tempt anyone to linger in the open
air, in the quiet, sweet, soft, darkling, humid twilight, full of the
silences and splendours of nature, and unawares moved by some brooding
of God. The other figure which, veiled by night, and by abstracting
thought, was wandering devious on those hills, thinking little of where
she went or whom she met, was in her way a better embodiment of the
sentiment of the night than were the agitated lovers. It was Ailie
Macfarlane come out to roam at eventide like Isaac. She had a shawl over
her head after the primitive fashion common to all nations, her head
veiled because of the angels. Sometimes she stumbled among the heather,
not remarking whither her foot strayed. The darkling world in which
those solemn hills stood up each folded in his twilight mantle, with
stars about his head and a forehead wet with dew, was full of God to the
inspired maiden. Her eyes were moist, like all the earth, with dew. Her
mind was full, not of thought but of a quiet consciousness. The poetry
that was love to Isabel was to Ailie, God. She was in His presence, His
great eyes were upon her, at any moment she might hear His voice calling
to her, as Adam heard it in the cool of the garden. As she strayed upon
the hills alone with that great trembling, thrilling Nature which was
conscious, too, of His presence, the Lord had strayed communing with His
Father. He had passed the whole night there, as His servant was not able
to do. He had gone down the darkling slopes and set his foot, unaware of
the restrictions of nature, upon the gleaming silvery waters below as
she could have done on the loch had her faith been but strong enough.
‘More faith! more faith!’ she murmured to herself as she went, ‘O Lord,
increase my faith.’ Her young soul was burning within her with the
cravings which Margaret Diarmid had divined; not soft submission to Him
that rules Heaven and earth, but eager anticipations, restless energy, a
heart full of passion. Joan of Arc might so have strayed on her southern
moors; though it was from the yoke of Satan that Ailie longed to deliver
her people--from wickedness, and disease, and misery. Why should not
she? Had not the Lord promised _whatsoever ye ask_? Had not He granted
to all eyes authentic wonders? Was His arm shortened that it could not
save? or was there anything wanted but faith, more faith?

The sound of voices roused her from her abstraction, first to a sudden
flush of annoyance, and then, as she perceived the two figures before
her, to a warm thrill of zeal for their conversion. ‘The Lord has
delivered them into my hand,’ the enthusiast said to herself. Their
backs were turned to her, and their minds so much occupied that even the
crackle of the heather under her foot did not betray her approach. She
was close by their side, laying a sudden hand upon the shoulder of each
before they were even aware of her presence.

‘What do ye here?’ said Ailie, rising as it seemed to them like a ghost
out of the darkness. The two sprang apart and gazed at the intruder, but
Ailie was too much absorbed by her office to heed their looks. ‘Isabel
Diarmid,’ she repeated with solemnity, ‘what do you here?’

‘I was doing nothing,’ said Isabel, startled back into self-possession:
‘I might say what were you doing coming upon folk like a ghost?’

‘If ye mean a spirit,’ said Ailie, ‘it’s like that I wish to come. What
is this poor body that we should let it thrall us? If I had faith I
might fly upon angel’s wings: but oh! I’m feared it was not to serve the
Lord that you two came here. Na, stand apart, and let me speak. Can ye
see a’ this world round about ye, and no feel that you’re immortal?
Isabel, the Lord would fain have ye to be His servant--and you too,
young man.’

‘Oh, Ailie, I’m no like you,’ murmured Isabel, awed out of her first
self-assertion. As for Stapylton, he turned away with contemptuous
impatience.

‘What does she know about it?’ he said. ‘Isabel, don’t you give in to
this rubbish. Nobody has any right to intrude upon another. Tell her to
mind her own business.’ This was said in a low tone. ‘Come, I’ll see you
home. It is getting late,’ he said, aloud.

‘Ah!’ said Ailie, ‘it’s getting late, awfu’ late. The blackness of the
night is coming on afore the awfu’ dawn. Think what it will be when you
canna go home, nor find a place to hide yourself in from the brightness
of His coming. Worldly wisdom would bid you join yourselves to Him now.
But I’m no thinking of worldly wisdom. To stand up for Him in a dark
world; to go forth like the angels, and make the way clear; to love and
to bless, and to give life for death. O Isabel! O young man! I would
rather that than Heaven.’

Ailie, with her young face gleaming white in the twilight, her nervous
arm raised, her abstracted, humid eyes gazing into the vacant darkness,
was a creature whose influence it was hard to be altogether indifferent
to. Stapylton, though he was capable of laughter at this exhibition ten
minutes after, was, at least, silenced for the moment. He looked at her
with that curious stupidity, in which the ordinary mind loses its
faculties at the sight of such incomprehensible poetic exaltation. But
Isabel, already excited, gazed upon the young prophetess with the big
tears still standing in her eyes, drawn by one emotion more closely
within the reach of another than she had yet been.

‘I am not standing against Him! Oh, Ailie, dinna think it! Not for the
world!’ she cried, dropping those two great tears; and Nature gave a
little gasp and sob within her. To go forth with God’s servants on this
austere road, or to wander with her love in the primrose paths. If there
was a choice to be made, could anyone doubt for a moment which would be
the right choice? But Isabel felt herself so different from this
inspired creature, so different even from Margaret, so much slighter,
younger, more trifling, fond of praise and admiration, and amusement;
not able to give her mind to it. And yet she was the same age as
Margaret, and very little younger than Ailie. ‘I am not like you,’ she
added, with an exquisite sense of her own imperfection, which brought
other tears from those same sources. And then the feminine impulse of
excuse came upon her: ‘We were meaning nothing,’ she said, hurriedly and
humbly. ‘I met Mr. Stapylton here on the hill. And it’s a bonnie night.
You were walking yourself, Ailie. And I’m going home. It was no harm.’

‘Oh, Isabel, ye never mind how you weary the Lord with your
contradictions,’ said the prophetess. ‘I canna see your heart like Him;
but do you think I canna see what’s moved ye? No the bonnie night, nor
the bonnie hill, nor His presence that’s brooding ower a’ the world; but
a lad that says he loves you, Isabel. There’s nae true love that’s no in
Christ. If he’s true, let him come to the Lord with ye this moment,
afore this blessed hour is gane. Eh, my heart’s troubled,’ she cried,
suddenly raising her arms; ‘my heart’s sore for you. If he comes not
now, when the Lord is holding wide the door, it’s that he’ll never come;
and then there is nothing for you but tribulation and sorrow, and
lamentation and woe!’

Her voice sank as suddenly as it had risen. She pressed her hands upon
her eyes, with what seemed, to the terrified Isabel, the gesture of one
who shuts out something terrible from her vision.

‘It is the spirit that’s upon her,’ Isabel murmured to herself,
shivering. ‘Oh, Ailie, dinna lay any curse on us, that never did you
harm!’

‘Curse!’ she said, so low that they could scarcely hear her. ‘It’s no
for me to curse. He had no curses in His mind, and wherefore should I?
It was a cloud that passed. Isabel, bring yon lad to God, bring him to
God! or he’ll bring you to misery, and trouble, and pain. I am saying
the truth. It’s borne in on me that he’ll bring you awfu’ trouble. But
if he comes to the Lord, ye’ll break Satan’s spell.’

Stapylton had turned aside in impatience, and heard nothing of this; but
now he came forward and laid his hand on Isabel’s arm.

‘Your sister will want you,’ he said, almost roughly; ‘it is getting
late, and this is not the place for a prayer-meeting; let me take you
home.’

‘Oh, Ailie, I must go home to my Margaret,’ said Isabel, clasping her
hands. Nature was contending, with natural awe and reverence, in the
girl’s mind. She did not reject the authority of the holy maid for one
moment--she was ready to yield to its power; but as soon as the
possibility of escape became visible to her, she seized it anxiously.
‘She’ll be waiting and watching for me; and you know how ill she is, and
I must not keep her anxious,’ pleaded Isabel; ‘but I’ll think upon all
you say.’

‘Aye, gang your ways, gang your ways,’ said Ailie, turning her back upon
them and dismissing them with a wave of her hand. ‘Put it off to a
convenient season; wait till you’re hardened in your worldly thoughts,
and the Lord has shut-to the door; but dinna come then and say, Give us
of your oil, for there will be nane to give in that day--nane to give!
The market’s open the noo, and plenty to fill your vessels; but in that
day there will be nane. Gang your ways to Margret, and tell her she’s
but a faint heart, that will lie down and die, when the Lord has that
need of her for His work. I’m no saying she’s not a child of God, but
she has a faint heart. Gang your ways.’

‘If you knew my Margaret better, ye would never dare to speak like
this,’ said Isabel, flushing into opposition. Stapylton drew her hand
into his arm, and led her away.

‘Come now,’ he said, ‘come while she has turned her head. I want no more
sermons for my part. Your sister is waiting, Isabel--come! this is too
much for me.’

Isabel suffered herself to be led across the heather, scarcely aware, in
her excitement, of the close pressure with which her lover held her
hand. She was angry for Margaret’s sake. ‘Nobody understands,’ she
murmured to herself. ‘Nobody knows what they’re saying. Her to be blamed
that is the flower of all!’ and turned her head, notwithstanding
Stapylton’s opposition, to maintain her sister’s cause against her
rival. But Ailie had turned away. She was going back, moving slowly
among the heather, with her head bent and her eyes cast down, dreaming
after her fashion, though not dreams like those of Isabel. Ailie was
thinking--with much confusion of images and vagueness of apprehension,
but with the exalted glow of ascetic passion--of the love of God. Poor
Isabel was trembling with all the complications, the duties, and desires
going contradictory to each other which adhere to the love of man.

‘I suppose she must be mad,’ said Stapylton; ‘nothing but madness could
account for it. That is what comes of prayer-meetings and such stuff. Or
if she’s not mad, she’s cunning and likes the power.’

‘And how do you think you can judge?’ cried Isabel, turning upon him
with the ready irritation of excitement,--‘you that know nothing of
Ailie, nor of her way of living. If you were healed all in a moment and
raised out of your bed, who would you believe did it but God? and could
you stop to think and consider the question if you were mad or not,
before you spoke. Let them judge that know!’

‘Never mind,’ said the young man, caressing the hand he held, ‘you
little fury! I don’t know and I don’t care; but you never thanked me for
reminding you of your sister, and freeing you from that mad creature.
Now she is gone there is no hurry, Isabel. It is not late, after all.’

‘But Margaret will want me,’ said the girl. ‘No; I’ll not wait, I must
go home.’

‘Only half an hour,’ he pleaded; ‘she is gone, and we have all the
hill-side to ourselves.’

Isabel made no answer, but she drew her hand from his arm, and continued
on her way, quickening rather than delaying her progress. He walked by
her for some time, sullen and lowering. He had no comprehension of the
high spirit of the girl, though he loved her. After a while he drew
closer to her side, and laid his hand on her arm.

‘You must do as I said, my darling, now,’ he said, with real fervour.
‘She is going back to her meeting, and it will be all over the parish
to-morrow, that you and I were courting on the hill.’

This was the drop too much that made Isabel’s cup run over. She turned
upon him with eyes that flashed through her tears. ‘Do you reproach me
with it?’ she cried--‘you I did it for? Oh, if I had known! But, Mr.
Stapylton, it shall be the last time.’

‘Don’t turn my words against me,’ he said, ‘don’t be so peevish, so
foolish, Isabel! as if it was that I meant.’

‘No, I’ll not be foolish,’ she answered, in her heat, ‘nor think shame
of myself for any lad. After this ye may be sure, Mr. Stapylton, I’ll
never do it again.’

And then she hastened down, increasing her speed at every step, and
taking no time to think. And he went sullenly by her side, not quite
sure whether he loved or hated her most in her perversity. And they
parted with a curt, resentful good night at the very door of the Glebe
Cottage, he being too angry and she too proud to linger over the
parting. It was a parting which all the world might have witnessed. And
Isabel returned to her quiet home, and Horace proceeded on to the
village, each with the blaze of a lover’s quarrel quivering about them.
Such flames are too hot and sudden to last; but nothing had yet done so
much to separate them as had this unexpected meeting with Ailie on the
hill.




CHAPTER IX


The Manse of Lochhead was not a venerable, nor a beautiful house. It had
none of the associations which sometimes cluster about an English
parsonage. It had not been built above twenty years, and neither its
dimensions nor its appearance were in the least manorial. But it was a
comfortable square house, quite large enough for the owner’s wants and
income, and important enough to represent the dignity of the minister,
amid the humble roofs of the village. It was built on a slope of the
braes which rose heathery and wild behind, and the prospect from its
windows was as soft as if there had been no mountains within a hundred
miles. The unequal combination of the great Highland range on one side,
with the pastoral loch on the other, which gave a charm to the Glebe
Cottage, was lost on this lower elevation.

The minister and the Dominie had dined together on the afternoon
preceding an adjourned meeting of the Kirk Session, partly because it
was habitual on the Saturday half-holiday, and partly to strengthen each
other for the work before them. The hour of their dinner was four
o’clock, which was as if you had said eight o’clock to that primitive
community. When the meal was over they adjourned to the study to smoke
the quiet pipe which was one of their bonds of union. The study was a
small room with one window looking into a vast rose-bush, though peeps
of the trim kitchen-garden were to be had on one side. You would have
supposed that it would be natural for two such men to prefer the other
side of the house, where the loch was visible, changing to a hundred
opal tints as the shadows pursued the fleeting uncertain sunshine of its
bosom. But they were very familiar with the view, and the little study
at the back was the legitimate place for the pipe and the consultation.

‘I am always afraid of these violent men,’ said the minister, ‘and then
they are so much in earnest. Earnestness is a fine quality, no doubt,
but it’s very hard to keep it in bounds; and I cannot let things go on
as they are doing. They’ll soon take the very work out of my hands.
Already it is not me but Ailie that’s at the head of the parish. And you
tell me you’ll give me no help?’

‘It’s against my principles,’ said the Dominie. ‘Let alone, that’s ay my
rule. I’m no for meddling with the development of the mind whatever form
it takes. You may say it’s a childish way to take up religion; but so
far as it’s gone there’s no harm.’

‘No harm! after what I told you of that scene at the Glebe, and the
reprobate turned prophet,’ said Mr. Lothian, angrily.

‘You’re very sensitive about the Glebe. If it had been any other house
in the parish it would not have gone so much to your heart.’

‘Well,’ said Mr. Lothian, ‘if I am, is it not natural? Two young
creatures, so strangely situated, neither ladies, so to speak, nor
simple lasses, though ladies in their hearts. And then that saint there
is more like Heaven than earth. You need not smile. I do not disguise my
feeling for her sister. It’s a mad notion for a man of my years, but I
don’t disguise it. And yet it was of Margaret I thought.’

‘By all I hear,’ said the Dominie, ‘she’ll soon be out of all risk of
disturbance.’

‘You speak at your ease,’ said the minister, rising in agitation to pace
about the little room. ‘When Margaret Diarmid dies it will be like the
quenching of a light to me, and more than me. And how can I protect her
deathbed but by putting a stop to this? Her deathbed, aye, or her very
grave. Have you forgot that they go further and further every day?’

‘I heard they were raising the dead,’ said the Dominie, calmly. ‘It’s
the sense o’ power that leads them away.’

‘And they _have_ power,’ said the minister, ‘that is the strangest of
all. Wherever it comes from, from God or the devil, they have power in
their hands. I cannot deny it--I cannot understand it. Are we to believe
what we see in contradiction of every instinct, or are we to hold by
reason and common sense, and the truth we understand, and give facts the
lie? The thought is too much for me.’

‘And so you would put a stop to it?’ the Dominie said, with a long puff
of smoke. ‘But ye’ll have discussion enough before that’s done. I’m more
concerned for the two poor things at the Glebe. If Margaret dies, as she
must die, what is to become of bonnie Isabel?’

The minister, though he was a man of vigorous frame, gave a momentary
shiver, as if the cold had seized him, and then sat down again, and
began to turn over his papers, averting his face. ‘You know what would
become of her,’ he said, ‘if I had my will.’

‘You would bring the lassie down here to be mistress and mair,’ said
Galbraith. ‘I’m no blaming you, though I cannot understand it myself.
You and me are more wiselike companions than her and you could ever be.
If you had married in your youth, like most men, ye might have had a
daughter of your own as old as she is now.’

‘I’ve said all that to myself,’ said the minister, ‘a hundred times
over. But it makes no difference. And I can bear whatever may
happen--but my heart craves this thing from the Lord, and no other,
before I die.’

‘You’re taking up their phraseology, for all your objections to them,’
said the Dominie, with a little disdain.

‘It’s the phraseology of all that yearn,’ cried the minister. ‘Why
should I not ask it of the Lord? It’s a lawful thing I crave. God do so
to me and more also if I would not cherish her like Christ His Church. I
am old enough to be her father, as you say; but I never loved woman till
now, and that is the youth of the heart. The boy there is fond of her in
his way--but what sort of a way? a fancy of the moment for her sweet
face. And you’ll say it’s more natural. But I tell you, Galbraith, there
is no nature in it,’ he said, once more rising in his excitement, ‘to
link that creature’s pure soul to a hardened, heathen, self-seeking man
of the world. I know the lad; he is near her in age, but in nothing
else. She makes a God of him in her imagination; and when her eyes were
opened, and she saw the loathly creature by her side, what would become
of my Isabel? She would break her heart, and she would die.’

‘Her eyes might never be opened,’ said the Dominie, reflectively.
‘There’s no bounds to a woman’s power of deceiving herself. She might
make a hero of him all her days, though he was but a demon to the rest
of the world. And the lad is maybe not so ill as ye say.’

‘That would be worst of all--for then he would drag her down to his
level, and blind her eyes to good and evil. No more,’ said the minister,
with a trembling voice; ‘you mean, well, Galbraith, but you don’t know
how hard all this is to bear.’

‘Maybe no--maybe no,’ was the answer; ‘but she might stay still at the
Glebe for all I can see, as long as Jean Campbell is there to take care
of her. Jean Campbell is a very decent woman. Margaret knows the worth
of her, but no yon hasty lassie of an Isabel. As long as she is there
there’s no such desperate necessity for a change.’

‘And Margaret is living, and may live,’ said Mr. Lothian, sinking back
into his easy chair.

The Dominie shook his head. ‘If one life could stand for another, I
would be sore tempted to give her mine,’ he said; ‘it’s so little good
to a man like me. I’ve had all that life can give. Ye may say it was a
niggardly portion--daily bread and little more--no comfort to speak of,
nothing like what you call success--no love beyond my mother’s when I
was a lad. And yet, though there’s so little, I’ll have all the trouble
of old age and death at the hinder end. Poor thing, she would be very
welcome to my life if there was any possibility of a transfer. But ye
must put away your profane thoughts, and get out your books, for yonder
is Andrew White coming down the brae.’

Half an hour after the Kirk Session had met. The minister took his place
at the head of the table, and Mr. Galbraith, with his book of minutes
opened before him, prepared to fulfil his office of Session clerk. ‘I
give no opinion,’ he had said to the other members of the court, ‘but
I’m Session clerk, and I’ll not neglect my duty.’ There was a prayer to
begin with, said by the minister, while they all stood up round the
table, some with wide-open eyes and restless looks, some with bowed
heads and reverence. And then the Dominie read the minutes of the last
meeting, and the present one was constituted.

‘To appoint the Rev. the Moderator, Mr. Andrew White, and Mr. William
Diarmid to inquire into the effect of the recent movement in the parish,
with power to act against all presuming and schismatical persons that
may be taking authority into their own hands.’

‘I have to ask the Moderator,’ said the Dominie, ‘if he is ready to
present his report.’

‘I have to make an explanation instead,’ said the minister. ‘We were not
agreed. What William Diarmid and myself found to be unreasonable and
bordering upon enthusiasm. Andrew approved of with all his heart. I will
give you the result of my own inquiries without prejudice to other
members of the court. In the first place, there are two or three women
who, contrary to all the rules of the church, and to the Apostle’s
order, take upon them to speak and lead the prayers of the
congregation----’

‘Wi’ a’ respect to the minister,’ said Andrew White, ‘I’ve ae small
remark to make. If it had been contrary to the order of the Apostles,
wherefore does St. Paul speak of the prophetesses that were to have a
veil upon their heads? There’s plenty of passages I could quote to
that----’

‘There’s ane that’s decisive to my way o’ thinking, said William
Diarmid. ‘That women are no to speak in the church.’

‘A law’s one thing,’ said Samuel of Ardintore. ‘But an institution
that’s actually existing is mair to be remembered than ae mention of a
rule against it, that might be nae law.’

‘We can leave that point,’ said the minister. ‘I say it is not for
edification, that Ailie Macfarlane, though I have not a word to say
against her, should be led away by her zeal to take up such a position
in the parish. By custom and use, if by nothing else, such things are
forbidden. I have not finished. I have to object further that persons
holding no office in the church, neither ministers, nor licentiates, nor
elders, have likewise taken a leading part, and prayed, and exhorted,
and held meetings, that so far as I can see they had no authority for.
If it is sanctioned by the Kirk Session, that is a different matter. But
the fact is that there are meetings taking place in every quarter of the
parish without the authority of the Kirk Session, or so much as a
sanction either from the elders or from me.’

‘I must protest,’ Moderator, said Samuel Diarmid. ‘I cannot allow that
the freedom of the subject is to be sae confined, that a man canna
praise God with his neighbours without authority from the minister; that
I canna allow.’

‘Ye may enter your protest,’ said the Dominie, ‘but the Moderator must
say out his say.’

‘And now I come to what is most serious of all,’ said Mr. Lothian. ‘It
is my opinion that these continual meetings, held by unauthorised
persons, are doing harm and not good to the devout in this parish. I say
nothing about the wonders that have attended the movement. These may
have been delusion; but far be it from me to say that there’s been
deception----’

‘There can be nae deception,’ said Andrew White, ‘in the work of the
Lord.’

‘Whisht, man!’ said Samuel; ‘the question the minister puts, if no in as
many words, is, If it _is_ the work of the Lord?’

‘For my part,’ said Mr. William, ‘I’ve no objection to meetings now and
then. It’s a good way of keeping the folk alive, and keeping up their
interest; and I wouldna say that Ailie Macfarlane should be put to
silence. I canna think but the Spirit in her comes from above; and we a’
know that she was raised up by a miracle. I wouldna put a stop to
nothing. I would only give them rules to guide them, and appoint the
meetings oursels; and let none take place without the minister and an
elder, or one of the neighbour ministers; or if that canna be, then twa
elders, to see that things are done decently in order. That would be my
proposition. No to let the parish go into ranting and violence; and at
the same time, so far as it’s His doing, no to strive against the Lord.’

‘And are ye to dictate to the Lord what day He shall come and what day
He shall bide?’ said Andrew. ‘If He gives a word of instruction to His
servants, is the voice to be silenced by the Kirk Session? I’ll never
give in to that. If it’s the work of man, let it come to an end; but
dinna put your straw bands on the flame o’ the Spirit o’ God.’

‘That’s a’ very true,’ said Mr. Smeaton; ‘but if the word o’ the Lord
was to come in the middle of the nicht, when the parish was sleeping, ye
wouldna have the prophet rise up and ca’ the honest folk out of their
beds? And if they can wait till the morning--or rather till the night
after, for they’re a’ at night these prayer-meetings--what’s to hinder
them to wait till anither day?’

‘It’s awfu’ carnal reasoning,’ said Samuel Diarmid; ‘but it’s no without
meaning for them that ken no better. I wouldna object to William’s
proposition mysel; but I canna answer for them that feel the word
burning within them that they can bide for your set days.’

‘Your sawbaths and your new moons,’ said Andrew. ‘Na, ye might as well
leemit the sun in his shining and the dew in its falling--they’ll speak
in season and out of season. It was for that they were sent.’

But Mr. William’s conciliatory motion was at last carried after much
more discussion. And the struggle did not break the bonds of amity which
united the little assembly: Samuel Diarmid volunteered not only his
advice, but a cart of guano to a certain field on the glebe, which, in
his opinion, was not producing such a crop as it ought. ‘You’re no a
married man yoursel, and it’s of less importance to ye,’ Samuel said,
‘but I canna bide to see land lying idle no more than men.’ And Andrew
White announced the intention of the mistress to send the minister a
skep of honey from the hills. ‘Ye keep nae bees yoursel, which is a
pity,’ said the elder, always with that gentle touch of admonition with
which the rural Scotch personage naturally addresses his clergyman. They
parted in the soft gloaming, while still there was light enough to guide
them on their respective ways. Mr. Smeaton, the stock farmer, had his
horse waiting at John Macwhirter’s; and the others dropped in there on
their homeward way to fight the battle over once more; all but Samuel
and Andrew, who climbed the hill together to the mill, where the former
was to take a bed for the night, his house being at the furthest limits
of the parish, on the other side of ‘the braes.’

‘Yon was grand about the minister’s sermons, to his face,’ said Mr.
Smeaton, as they went over the whole discussion in the smithy.

‘Ay, man; did they gang into that subject? I’m real glad o’t,’ said John
Macwhirter; ‘he’s a learned man and a clever man, but he’s as fu’ of
doctrines as an egg’s fu’ of meat. He’s no half practical enough for
me.’

Thus it will be seen opinions differed widely even on the primitive
shores of the Loch.




CHAPTER X


The next day, which was Sunday, carried the news of this decision
through all the parish. It was a bright morning after the rain, one of
those radiant pathetic days which are so usual in the Highlands. The
women came across the hill with their dresses ‘kilted’ and pinned up to
preserve them from the moisture which glistened on the heather. The
birch-trees hung their glistening branches out to the sun. The paths ran
with the recent rain; and at the same time the sun shone brilliantly
upon everything reflected from the dazzling mirror of the Loch, where
not a boat or sign of life disturbed the Sabbatical repose. The
gathering of the kirk-going crowd is always a pretty sight. Dissent
scarcely existed in those days in such rural places. Groups came
gathering along all the paths; the village emptied itself of all but an
occasional housewife, or the old grannie too deaf or feeble to join the
congregation. While the cracked and miserable bell tingled forth its ten
minutes from the tower, the women and children poured into the church,
while the men lingered in a crowd in the churchyard waiting till the
tingle should be over. This was the habit of the Loch; but to-day these
groups were animated by a livelier interest than usual. There was no
question of crops outside among the men, nor of measles and
whooping-cough among the women rustling and whispering in their pews.
‘Have ye heard the news that the meetings are stopped?’ ‘I have heard
it, but I canna believe it.’ ‘I’m very thankful, for there was nae
saying what they might have turned to;’ or, ‘I’m awfu’ sorry, and such
good as they were doing in the parish.’ ‘But the thing is, will Ailie
submit, or Mr. John?’ These were the words that were whispered from one
to another as the bell jingled forth its summons to church. The two thus
conjoined had come to be regarded universally as the leaders of the
movement; they were patronised and supported by many parochial
personages of weight, but in the end it was evidently they who must
decide.

Mr. Lothian’s sermon, as was expected, bore some reference to the
momentous crisis of affairs. With that natural perversity to which even
the best of men yield like their inferiors, the minister’s sermon,
instead of being as Samuel Diarmid had suggested, ‘rousing,’ was calmer
than usual in its tone; and he was so bold, almost rash, all things
taken into consideration, as to take his text from the strange
description in the Old Testament of those prophets whom Saul joined in
their wild rapture of inspiration. By a rare self-denial he refrained
from absolutely quoting the words which were on the lips of all his
parishioners. ‘Is Saul also among the prophets?’--but dwelt upon the
wild outburst which had so little effect upon the condition of the
people, and upon the sorrowful calm of Samuel to whom no such ardour of
religious excitement seemed to have been given. ‘From all we can see,’
said the minister, ‘he stood and looked on, not disapproving, but well
aware in his heart how little was to be expected from such bursts of
enthusiasm.’ The attention in the church was absorbing. Sometimes there
would be a stolen glance at Ailie, who listened like the rest with
profound attention, a gleam of colour now and then flitting over her
visionary face; and he was happy who could obtain from his seat a
glimpse of the Ardnamore pew, with Mr. John’s dark head relieved against
the high back. He sat alone, and was very conspicuous in the front of
the gallery, and at any time he would have been notable among the
shrewd, expressive, peasant countenances round him. Something of the
finer and more subtle varieties of expression given by education and
intercourse with the world, and--though he was at best but a country
squire--something of the flavour of race was in the passionate, dark
face, fixed upon the preacher with a defiant attention which seemed
likely at any moment to burst into utterance. People said he had
actually risen to sneak when Mr. Lothian hastily gave the benediction
and concluded the service. There had not been so exciting a ‘diet of
worship’ on the Loch in the memory of man. The congregation, as it
dispersed, broke into little groups, discussing the one subject from
every point of view.

‘I wonder how he daur speak, with her yonder before him like one of the
saints, and sae humble for a’ her gifts.’ ‘And, eh, I wonder how a young
lass could sit and listen to a’ yon from the minister and still bide
steadfast in her ain way, said the gossips. ‘But I canna haud with that
way o’ finding fault with Scripture,’ said one of the fathers of the
village. ‘A’ Scripture’s written for our instruction; and wha gave ony
man authority to judge the auld prophets as if they were not examples
every ane?’

‘It’s a fashion nowadays,’ said another. ‘I’ve heard some o’ them as
hard on Jacob, honest man, as if he had been a neebor lad; and as for
King Dawvid and his backslidings----’

‘Had he been a neebor lad, as ye say, he had never come within my door,’
cried Jenny Spence, ‘and seeing the Lord puts them to shame Himsel,
wherefore should we set up for making them perfect? And, bless me, if ye
think of a wheen naked men, tearing their claes, and ranting afore
decent folk----’

‘Haud your tongue, Jenny!’ said John, ‘or speak o’ things ye
understand.’

‘If I didna understand better nor you lads that never take thought of
naething, it would be queer to me,’ retorted Jenny. ‘What wi’ your work,
and your clavers, and Luckie Bisset ower the hill----’

‘Whisht! whisht! woman, it’s the Sawbath-day,’ said an older neighbour;
and then the original subject was resumed.

Among the many church-going parties there was the habitual one from the
Glebe. Jean Campbell, in her best attire, the heavy, well-preserved, but
somewhat rusty weeds which became the Captain’s widow was an imposing
figure. Her crape was rather brown, but it was a more perfect evidence
of rank to her than silk or satin. Her fresh, comely face looked out
pleasantly from the white crimped borders, and overshadowing pent-house
of black, which marked her condition. Not a new-made widow on all the
Loch had deeper weeds than she; though Isabel by her side in her grey
gown and with her rose ribbons looked fresh as the day.

Jean had many salutations to make as they issued out of church; and
pretty Isabel, who was very conscious of the little step of superiority
in her position which make her notice of her rustic neighbours, ‘a
compliment,’ distributed her little greetings like a princess, shyly
looking out for Miss Catherine, with whom she was wont to walk home a
far as the gate of Lochhead, thus separating herself from the common
level on which her stepmother stood.

‘Look well at Isabel of the Glebe as you pass her; you maun make your
new frock like yon,’ an anxious mother would say to her daughter. ‘They
say she’s aye meeting that young Stapylton on the braes, but he daurna
come near her on the Sabbath-day.’ ‘Eh, no, I’m thinking he wouldna have
the face, and her waiting for Miss Catherine.’ Isabel was softly
conscious of the comments made upon her. When Margaret and she were
children, standing together waiting for their father on the same spot
ten years before, the same looks had been turned upon them; the same
curious observations made on their dress and their ‘manners;’ and ‘Ye
dinna see the wee ladies behaving like that,’ had been a common
admonition to the unruly children around.

‘I hope you are all well,’ she said to Jenny Spence with the pretty
‘English,’ which the Loch admired, and which, to tell the truth, Isabel
herself often forgot, except on those Sabbatical occasions. And Jenny
felt the compliment of the salutation and the pride of the connection so
profoundly that she rushed into eager tender inquiries about Margaret,
overwhelming the girl with her reverential affection. While she stood,
with smiling dignity, listening to Jenny Spence, another little incident
occurred that increased still further her importance with the crowd.
Ailie Macfarlane was not in the habit of speaking to anyone as she left
the church. She would pass through them all with her little Bible folded
in her hands, her eyes either cast down or gazing rapt into the air,
while everybody made way for her. But when she approached Isabel on this
memorable day, Ailie paused. She took one of her hands from her Bible,
and suddenly laid it upon Isabel’s. It was cold; and the girl, who had
not expected it, made a little start backward from the touch.

‘It’s like ice to your warm blood,’ said Ailie; ‘and so am I to you. But
I’m no acting on my ain notion. Isabel Diarmid, promise me you’ll come
to the prayer-meeting the morn.’

‘O Ailie, how can I promise?’ said Isabel in dismay, ‘and Margaret so
ill.’

‘Dinna set that up for an excuse. I’m bidden to ask you by them that
will have no excuse,’ said Ailie. ‘To her ain Master she standeth or
falleth--I’m no judging Margaret. But, Isabel, I’m bidden to summon
you.’

‘I cannot leave my sister,’ faltered Isabel, raising her eyes to the
crowd with a mute appeal for defence.

‘You can leave her for the hill,’ said Ailie, very low; and then she
added hurriedly. ‘It’s no me that speaks. There’s awfu’ trouble and
sorrow in your way, and you’re but a soft feckless thing to bear it.
Come to the prayer-meeting the morn.’

It was just at this moment that Miss Catherine appeare. Isabel’s eyes
had been diverted for the moment away from the church, and she had not
seen the approach of her friend; who laid her hand upon the girl’s
shoulder as Ailie repeated her invitation.

‘Ailie Macfarlane,’ Miss Catherine said, while Isabel started nervously
at the unexpected touch. ‘You are not to bid her to your meetings; she
is too young, and she is my kinswoman, and I cannot let her go.’

‘If she was the queen’s kinswoman I would bid her,’ said Ailie. ‘What
are your ranks and degrees to the Spirit of the Lord? I’m offering her
far more than you can offer her, though you’re a lady and me but a
simple lass. Now that persecution has come upon us, as was to be looked
for, it canna be but the Spirit will be poured out double. It’s out of
love to Isabel I ask her, that she may taste the first-fruits and be
kent for ane of the chosen. Who are you that would stand between the
Lord and His handmaid? I’m freed from earthly bonds this day. Isabel,
I’ll say nae mair to ye; but tell Margaret I bid her arise and meet
me--for the corn is whitening to the harvest; and come yoursel.’

When she had said these words she passed on with the same rapt look as
before, speaking to no one, seeing no one. The people round had gathered
close to hear what she said, and dispersed slowly out of her path as she
turned, making way for her reluctantly, and full of curiosity. Some of
the women even plucked at her dress as she passed. ‘Eh, Ailie! speak one
word. Will’t bring judgment on the parish?’ said one anxious voice. But
Ailie made no reply. She glided away from them, with that directness and
silent speed of motion which gives a certain spiritual and ghostly air
to the very movements of the abstracted and impassioned.

Isabel had forgotten her simple vanity. She stood trembling, with tears
in her eyes, by Miss Catherine’s side, not even capable of pride in
being thus adopted as the special charge of the great lady of the
parish.

‘She says I’m coming to grief and trouble,’ sobbed poor Isabel. ‘Oh, is
it my Margaret she means?’

‘Hush!’ said Miss Catherine drawing Isabel’s hand through her own; ‘you
must not cry before all these folk. Come and tell me all that ails you.
Is Margaret worse that you tremble so? and what can that poor thing know
about it more than you or me? Can she know as well as Margaret herself?’

‘But if it was true that she had the Spirit?’ faltered Isabel through
her tears. ‘And oh, Miss Catherine, it goes to my heart what she aye
says--if Margaret had but faith!’

‘Margaret has all the faith a Christian woman wants--be you sure of
that,’ said Miss Catherine, with impatience; ‘and I wish the minister
had taken order sooner to put a stop to all this. But, Isabel, there
might be worse things in your way than the grief we all share. My dear,
I have been wanting long to speak to you. Put Ailie and her raving put
of your mind, and come cannily up to Lochhead with me.’

‘Margaret will want me,’ said Isabel, awakening suddenly to a sense that
admonitions of another kind were hanging over her.

‘I’ll not keep you long,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘and Jean shall say where
you are. Good-day, Mrs. Diarmid. I am taking Isabel with me to have a
talk. Give Margaret my love, and I’ll walk up to see her this afternoon
and bring her sister back. There’s no change?’

‘I canna say there’s ony change, Miss Catherine,’ said Jean, divided
between the melancholy meaning of what she said and the glory of this
address; for even Miss Catherine, punctilious as she was in giving
honour where honour was due, seldom addressed her by the dignified title
of Mrs. Diarmid; ‘but she’s aye wearing away, and weaker every day.’

‘The Lord help us, there’s nothing else to be looked for,’ said Miss
Catherine, sadly. And Isabel, who had regained her composure to some
extent, fell weeping once more, silently leaning on her friend’s arm.
There was nothing more said till they descended the brae, and made their
way through the village. The Loch had never been trained to the custom
of curtseying to the lady of the manor. The groups stood aside with
kindly looks to let her pass, and here and there a man better bred than
usual took off his hat, but the salutations in general were rather nods
of friendly greeting and smiles that broadened the honest rural faces
than more reverential servilities. ‘How are all at home, John?’ Miss
Catherine said, in her peremptory way as she passed. ‘How is all with
ye, Janet?’ And then there was a needful pause, and the story of the
children’s recovery from some childish epidemic would be told, or of the
letter from ‘the lads’ in Canada, or of family distress and anxiety.
When they were quite free of these interruptions, which had once more
the effect of bringing composure to Isabel, whose April tears dried
quickly, and whose heart could not be coerced out of hope, Miss
Catherine turned to the special charge she had taken upon her.

‘My dear,’ she said, ‘I am going to be a cruel friend. I have made up in
my mind all manner of hard things to say to you, Isabel. You are not to
take them ill from me. We’re kindred far removed, but yet there’s one
drop’s blood between you and me, and I know nobody on the Loch that
wishes you well more warmly. Will you let me speak as if I were your
mother? Had she been living it would have been her place.’

‘Miss Catherine,’ said Isabel, with a thrill of nervous impatience, a
sudden heat flushing to her face, ‘how can you ask it? Ye have always
said whatever you liked to me.’

‘And you think I’ve sometimes been hard upon you?’ said Miss Catherine.
‘Well, we’ll not argue. Your mother was younger than me, Isabel, and she
had no near friends any more than you. If she had had a father or a
brother to take care of her, she never would have married Duncan
Diarmid. I am meaning no offence to the Captain. He did very well for
himself, and a man that makes his way is always to be respected; but he
was a different man from what your mother thought when she married him,
and her life was short, and far from happy. She was a sweet, wilful
tender, hot-tempered thing, just like you.’

‘Eh, I’m no wilful!’ said Isabel, thrilling in every vein with the
determination to resist all advice that could be given to her. They were
almost alone on the green glistening road which wound round the head of
the Loch, and the water rippled up upon the pebbles, and flashed like a
great mirror in the sunshine. The girl’s heart rose with the
exhilaration of the brightness.

‘Your mother would take no advice,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘and she died
at five-and-twenty, and left you, two poor babies, without a mother to
guide you in the world.’

‘But, oh, it was not her fault she died,’ cried Isabel. ‘Folk die that
are happy too.’

‘I’ll tell you what it was,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘not to put you
against your father. He never pretended to more than he was. Duncan was
aye honest, whatever else. But your mother saw qualities in him that no
mortal could see. And when the hasty thing saw her idol broken, her
heart broke too; and you’re like her--too like, Isabel.’

‘For one thing at least, I’m wronging nobody; and why should you say all
this to me?’ cried the girl all flushed and resentful, and yet
struggling with her tears.

‘How can I tell what you might be tempted to do? Margaret
Diarmid--that’s your mother--gave me her word she would take time and
think, and the very next Sabbath she was cried in the kirk! Isabel, I
said I would be cruel. Do you know, do you ever think, what’s coming
upon you, bairn?’

Isabel made no answer--her resentment could not stand against this
solemnity of tone. She raised her eyes to Miss Catherine as one who
awaits the sentence of fate.

‘While you are running about, out and in, like a butterfly or a bird,
and singing your songs, and working at your seam, and meeting strange
folk upon the braes’--said Miss Catherine with emphasis. ‘I am not
blaming you, even for the last. But all this time there’s coming a day
when you will be left alone in the world, Isabel. Your bit cottage will
still be yours--so to speak a home; but a home that’s empty and
desolate, what is that? And none to lean on, none to advise you, none to
be your guide--silence in the chambers, and cold on the hearth; and you
no better than a bairn, used from your cradle to lean on her and turn to
her: what will you do when you are alone in the world?’

‘Oh, my Margaret!’ cried Isabel, drawing her hand from Catherine’s arm
and bursting into a passion of tears. They were within the gate at
Lochhead, and there was no one by to see the girl’s weeping, which was
beyond control. She had been told of it again and again, and realised it
to some degree, but never until now had brought her imagination to bear
on the life that remained for herself after her sister was gone. Miss
Catherine was softened by the violence of her emotion. She took Isabel
into her arms and let fall a tear or two out of her old eyes, to mingle
with those scorching drops that came wrung out of the other’s very
heart.

‘Oh, you are cruel, cruel,’ cried Isabel, struggling out of her embrace;
‘I will die too! I canna bear it; I canna bear it! It is more than I can
bear.’

Then Miss Catherine led her, blind with her tears, to a grassy seat hid
among the trees, and sat down by her and did her best to administer
comfort. ‘Isabel, you know well it must be so,’ she said at length, with
some severity. ‘It cannot be that you have found it out for the first
time to-day.’

‘Oh, do not speak to me,’ cried Isabel; ‘how can ye dare to say it is to
be, when God could raise her up in a moment like Ailie? And there was
Mary Diarmid down the Loch that was--dying--that’s what they said--and
even she got the turn. Oh, do not speak to me, God is not cruel as you
say.’

All these reproaches Miss Catherine bore, sitting compassionately by her
victim until the force of her passion was spent; and when Isabel, faint
and exhausted, like a creature in a dream, could resist no longer, she
resumed where she had left off.

‘My dear, I am thinking what is to become of you when this comes to
pass--and so does Margaret. Bless her, she thinks of you night and day;
and many a talk we have about you, Isabel, when you’re little thinking
of us. There is one good man in the parish that loves you well----’

‘I want no love,’ answered the girl, almost sullenly. ‘Oh, Miss
Catherine, don’t speak like this to me.’

‘But I am speaking for Margaret’s sake. There is one that would be a
comfort and strength and blessing to any woman. And there is the other
lad. Isabel! your father was rough and wild, and not a match for my
kinswoman Margaret Diarmid; but he had always a heart. This lad has
little heart. If you but heard how he can speak of them you hold most
dear----’

‘Miss Catherine,’ said Isabel, with a voice of despair, starting to her
feet, ‘I will run home to Margaret; I can bear no more.’




CHAPTER XI


The prayer-meeting on Monday evening was the most exciting ‘occasion’
that had been known on the Loch for years. At this the decision of the
prophets would be made known, as the decision of the Kirk Session had
already been. It was moonlight, that great necessity of all rural
evening gatherings; and from all the corners of the parish came curious
hearers eager to know what was the next step to be taken. Mr. William’s
wife from Wallacebrae was even one of the audience, undeterred by her
husband’s objections. ‘How can I say I’m against them, and my ain wife
led away to hear?’ he said. ‘Hoot away! No to hear them, but to see what
they will do,’ said Mrs. Diarmid; ‘am I to be led away?’

And Isabel, who had begun to place a certain vague hope in Ailie, after
the struggle she had gone through the day before, had made up her mind
to obey the injunction so strongly laid upon her, and to go also. ‘I
would like to hear what they say, and what they are going to do,’ she
said to her sister, in almost the same words which the mistress at
Wallacebrae had given as her excuse, owning no sympathy with the
enthusiasts, but simple curiosity.

‘But you must not go to hear the Word of God as if it were a play,’ said
Margaret, ‘it is always the word of God whoever speaks it. If you are
but going out of curiosity, Isabel, it would be better to bide with me.’

‘I would rather stay with you than do anything else in the world; if you
would but stay with me,’ said Isabel, with wistful looks, ‘and try,
maybe, what Ailie said?’

‘Ye vex me,’ said the dying girl. But the tone was so soft that it could
scarcely be called a reproach. And yet Margaret felt that to remain with
her in the unbroken quiet of the long evening was more than Isabel could
now bear. There were the braes with all their wistful delights to tempt
her forth, and her own unquiet, restless heart, tortured by doubt and
grief, and distracting gleams of the future; and there was perhaps the
lover whom in her heart she yearned for and yet had begun to flee.

‘_She_ is going,’ Isabel said again, after a pause, ‘and you are always
so kind, you say ye want for nothing, Margaret. It is not for curiosity.
They told me I was warned by name. No, I am not going away after them; I
was thinking of different things.’

‘Ever of that miracle?’ said Margaret, with a faint smile, ‘which will
never come. If it was not for you, Isabel, it would be a miracle to me
to be away. But we will no speak of that; leave little Mary with me if
you will go--not that I want anybody, I am real well to-night, and no
breathless to speak of; but it’s ill for the bairn.’

‘Oh, Margaret! I feel whiles as if you thought more of that bairn than
of your own sister!’ said Isabel, with all the hot jealousy of a heart
which felt itself divided and guilty.

‘She _is_ my sister,’ said Margaret, softly; ‘but nobody could ever be
like my Bell; it would be strange if you needed to be told that now.’

And then the impatient, impetuous girl wept and upbraided herself. ‘Oh,
I am not myself, I am not myself!’ she said; ‘I’m all wrong; it’s as if
I could not submit to God.’

‘My bonnie Bell!’ said Margaret, wistfully, gazing at the perplexing
creature, whom she could not understand, and laying her hand upon the
bowed-down head. A little sigh of weariness mingled with her perplexity.
She had come to that point when peace is demanded by worn-out nature;
and those tumults were too much for her. ‘Put on something warm,’ she
said, ‘and tell _her_ she is not to go too far in; but be home soon and
let me hear what’s passed. If Ailie speaks to you, tell her I’m real
well and content.’

‘Will I tell her you are better? Oh, will I say you’re mending,
Margaret?’

‘Ye cannot think how you vex me,’ said poor Margaret, sighing, ‘you more
than all. Why should I mend? I am far on my journey now, and why should
I come back just to tread all the weary way over again another time?
Tell Ailie I’m winning home. The road is uphill, and maybe the last bit
is the steepest; but I am real content. If you will not say that, say
nothing, Isabel. And if you are going, it is time for you to go.’

‘But I’ll go and leave you angry, Margaret,’ cried Isabel; ‘angry and
vexed at me?’

‘No, no; no angry,’ said Margaret, wearily. The hectic spot had come
into her cheek. She laid her head back on the cushions with again a
weary sigh. What wonder if she longed for the end--she to whom life had
no longer anything to give? She closed her eyes for a moment, and
Isabel, feeling more guilty than ever, stole away to warn her
stepmother, and to tie on her cottage bonnet and great grey cloak.
‘You’ll watch Margaret that she wants nothing; but you’ll not speak to
her to wear her out,’ she said to little Mary, ever jealous of her
sister’s love.

The schoolhouse was all dark when the crowd reached it. Instead of the
usual preparation for them the door was locked, and the Dominie stood on
the step, looking down upon the dark groups as they began to arrive and
gather round, with the patience of the rural mind. ‘The door’s no open
yet.’ ‘The lights are no lightet.’ ‘I tell’t ye, for a’ your grumbling,
we would be here soon enough.’ ‘It’s no often Ailie’s late.’ ‘And what’s
the Dominie waiting there like a muckle ghost,’ murmured the crowd.

Mr. Galbraith, to tell the truth, was in no desirable position. He had
the key in his hand, but that could not be seen; and he was charged with
the dangerous mission of temporising, and commissioned to coax the
multitude out of their excitement, and persuade them to go quietly home.
If he did not succeed, there was always the key to fall back upon. ‘In
the last place, if better is not to be made of it, I’ll let them have
their will,’ he had said. Of all offices in the world the least
satisfactory. Already he had begun to see that it was a mistake, but it
was now too late to withdraw. ‘They should have found a’ dark and been
treated to no explanations,’ he said to himself, as he stood with his
back against the door and gazed on them. A mob is not an easy thing to
deal with in any circumstances; and a religious mob, spurred up to the
highest point of spiritual excitement, is the most dangerous of all. Had
it not been for the large leaven of mere curiosity which kept down the
pitch of agitation, things might have gone badly for the Dominie. He
cleared his throat a great many times before he screwed himself to the
point of addressing them. The prophets themselves had not yet appeared,
and if it might be possible to dismiss the people before the arrival of
their leaders, a great point would be gained. Spurred by this thought he
at last broke the silence.

‘My friends,’ said the Dominie; and there was an immediate hush of the
scraping feet, and the coughs and whispers of impatience. The moon had
gone in and all was dark, so that he could distinguish none of the
faces turned to him, and felt, as few orators can do, the sense of that
vague abstraction, a crowd unbroken by the glance of any exceptional
sympathetic face. ‘My friends, I’m here to say a word to you from the
Kirk Session. Those that are put over ye in the Lord have taken much
thought and counsel together to see what’s best to be done. I am
reflecting upon nobody. It’s not my place to tell you who you are to
hear, or when you are to forbear. But I appeal to those that are heads
of families if there have not been too many of these meetings? The human
mind is not equal to such a strain. I’ve studied it all my life, and ye
may believe me when I speak. There must be a Sabbath for the body, and
the mind’s mair delicate than the body. But any night, every night, have
ye no assembled here, to listen to the most agitating addresses, given,
I do not gainsay, with what is more touching than oratory, with the
whole conviction of the soul. My friends, ye have but a delicate machine
to manage. Your minds are no like your ploughs that are simple things to
guide. They’re like the new-fangled steam-engines, full of delicate bits
of wheels, and cranks, and corners----’

At this moment a figure glided up to him out of the crowd. The Dominie
divined at once whose were those swift and noiseless steps, and felt
that his oratory and his object were defeated. She came and placed
herself beside him holding up her hand, and at that moment the moon
burst forth and shone full upon Ailie’s face, which in that light was
white as marble, with the full large lambent eyes, almost projected from
it, looking out upon the eager spectators.

‘Come na here with your carnal wisdom,’ said Ailie, putting up her hand
as if to stop him. ‘Oh come na here! What’s learning, and knowledge, and
a’ your science afore the fear of the Lord? And how dare ye stop His
servants from constant prayer to Him, and saving souls? Will ye quench
the Spirit, O man, with your vain words? Think ye we’re sae little in
earnest that we want biggit walls to shelter us, or your fine candles to
give us light? The Lord is our light,’ cried the prophetess, stretching
out her hand towards the moon that shone full upon her. And there was a
rustle and stir in the crowd which told the instant response of the
audience.

The Dominie’s own feelings were not beyond the reach of such an
apostrophe. He moved uneasily from one foot to another, and began to
fumble in his coat-pocket for the key, the last concession which he was
prepared to make.

‘I am saying nothing against that, my good lass,’ he said; ‘not a word
am I saying, but that for you and the like of you there’s too much of
this; and that’s the Kirk Session’s opinion. You shall have plenty of
opportunity--plenty of occasion, but, my dear, for the sake of your own
life, and for all the rest of them, not every night----’

‘Friends,’ said another voice suddenly from another quarter, ‘it is
nothing wonderful if persecution has come upon us. I have expected it
from the first. The hand of this world is against the servants of God,
and ever will be. We are driven forth like our forefathers to the
hill-side. The Church has shut to her doors against us. I told you it
would be so. I told you a lukewarm, unawakened Church would never bear
that within her bosom that was a reproach to her. And what of that?’ the
speaker went on with growing excitement, ‘there is God’s word that they
cannot drive us out of, and God’s lights that He has set for us in the
heavens, and His ear that is ever open, and His hand that is ready to
save. On your knees, my brethren! What hinders that we should pray to
Him here?’

Then there arose a murmur among the crowd: ‘It’s Mr. John!’ ‘Eh, it’s
the days of the persecution come back.’ ‘We’ll no thole’t.’ ‘Who’s the
minister or the Kirk Session either to stand up against the Christian
people?’ ‘And quench the Spirit?’ cried a voice above the rest; ‘do they
mind that’s the unpardonable sin?’

Mr. Galbraith made vain efforts to speak; the murmurs rose higher and
higher, and began at last to direct themselves to him. ‘Is the like of
that weirdless Dominie to stand against ye a’, feeble loons?’ cried a
woman. ‘Wha’s he that he should daur to stand against us?’ ‘Let me at
him!’ ‘Eh, lads, canny, canny, he’s an auld man.’ Such were the cries of
indignation and alarm that rose in the stillness. The remnant of people
who had been left in the village came rushing forth to see what was the
matter. Mr. Lothian was at the other end of the parish, but young
Stapylton, who had just returned from a fruitless ramble on the braes,
came lounging to the Manse gate. The moon went suddenly behind a cloud,
leaving all that darkling mass confused and struggling. Then it was that
the Dominie made himself heard. ‘Lads,’ he shouted, his voice reaching
the entire crowd though he was himself unseen, ‘I’ve trained ye, and I’m
reaping the credit. If it was for your sakes ye might tear the auld man
in pieces before you should have your will. Dinna think ye can frighten
me. If I give the key to Ailie, it is for the women’s sake; and the
bairns. Women, are ye mad that ye bring bairns here?’

‘It’s because their souls are mair precious to us than a’ the world,’
cried some mother in the crowd. ‘It’s little enough you teach them,’
cried another. ‘Where would they hear the Gospel if no in the meetings?’
‘No in the kirk, wi’ a moderate minister and his moral essays.’ ‘And now
when we’ve found the Word of God ye would drive us to the hill-side to
seek it.’ ‘They would drive us into the Loch if they had their will,’
cried the crowd.

Isabel Diarmid, with all her sensibilities in arms, humiliated to the
dust, indignant, terrified, stood trembling in the midst of this
seething, agitated mass, thrust about by its sudden movements, ready to
cry or to faint, feeling her self-respect for ever lost, no better than
‘a common lass’ among the crowd. She felt herself drawn along by the
movement of the people round her rushing in one body for the door,
which, with much noise of the key in the keyhole, had at length been
opened. Clinging to her stepmother, vainly resisting, overwhelmed with
shame, she felt herself swept out of the fresh air into the dark
schoolroom no longer an individual with a will of her own, but a
helpless portion of the crowd. When the first pioneers succeeded in
lighting one miserable candle to throw a glimmer over the scene, its
feeble rays gave no one any assistance, but only cast a wretched twinkle
of revelation, showing the struggle--the benches pushed aside by the
blind, uncertain crowd; the throng pouring in darkling through the black
doorway. By degrees a few other feeble twinkles began to glitter about
the room, and the people subsided into seats, with much commotion and
struggling.

The strange gloom, the flicker of the candles, the eager look of all
those faces turned towards the Dominie’s table, at which stood Mr. John;
the thrill of excitement and expectation among them, overcame Isabel’s
susceptible nature. All her shame disappeared before the extraordinary
fire of popular emotion which she had suddenly caught. If she could be
said to have hated any man in the world, Mr. John would have been the
man. And yet she sat and gazed at him as if he had been an angel of
fate.

‘It’s come at last,’ he said; ‘my brothers, I’ve been looking for it
long. None can live godly in Christ Jesus but suffer persecutions. And
Satan has found his instruments. Two nights had not gone from your first
meeting in this place when the Lord showed me how it would be. But are
we to give up our sacred standard because the heathen rage and the
people imagine a vain thing--aye, a vain thing! As well might they bind
the Loch that the flood should not come up. Has not the Spirit of the
Lord come like a flood upon this parish; and they try to stop Him with a
key turned in the lock and a shut door! But the Lord has opened us a
door, great and effectual. Praise Him, my friends, that He has given us
the victory. The horse and his rider has He overthrown in the sea----’

‘But this is awfu’ irregular,’ cried another personage, who rose
suddenly out of the darkness, and was discovered after a time to be
Samuel Diarmid the elder. He came out of the front row, which was merely
a range of dark heads to the people behind, and stepped before the
prophet with a small Bible in his hand. ‘My friends,’ he said, ‘though
Mr. Galbraith took upon him to shut ye out o’ this public place
belonging to the parish, I am here in my capacity as an elder o’ this
parish to preside among ye. I hope there’s none here will dispute my
right. We’ll open the meeting in the usual way by singing to the praise
of God in the Psalms; and after the meeting’s lawfully constituted, ye
shall hear whatever word the Lord’s servant may have to say.’

At this announcement, there arose a sudden rustle and resolute thumbing
of the Psalms, which were attached to everybody’s Bible. The audience
found the place conscientiously, though only a few could by any
possibility see the page. Samuel himself led the singing, standing with
his book in his hand, and his figure swaying to and forward with the
cadence of the ‘tune;’ and seated in darkling rows, with their books
held in every possible slope to reach the light, the audience lifted up
their voices and sang one of those strange measures at which musicians
stand aghast. Isabel sang it with all her heart. No criticism occurred
to her. Her ear was not shocked by the false notes, the curious growls
and creaks of utterance around her.

And then she closed her little Testament, and stood up, covering her
face with her hands for the prayer. It was the prayer of a man having
authority which Samuel Diarmid poured forth; and in that darkness
through which no man could make out his neighbour’s face, the crowd
stood and listened. His prayer was a kind of liturgy in itself. He
prayed for her Sacred Majesty, as is the custom in Scotland, and for the
Government and magistrates, and every class of men who could be put
together in a general supplication. There was something half-comic,
half-solemn in his formality; but it did not strike his audience as
anything peculiar. They drew a long breath when it was ended, with
conscious but unexpressed relief.

‘He’s ay awfu’ dry and fusionless in his prayers,’ Jean whispered to
Isabel, ‘but wait till it’s Ailie’s turn.’

When they had all resumed their seats, the speaker opened his Bible and
began to read ‘a chapter.’ For some part of this, all went on with
perfect quiet and decorum. You might have been in the kirk, Isabel said
to herself, had it not been so dark, and the people so thronged
together. The thought was passing through her mind when all at once a
crash of sound startled her. She rose to her feet in wonder, gazing
where it might come from; but to her amazement no one else moved. Heads
were raised a little, the attention of the mass was quickened, but
nobody except herself thought, as Isabel did, that something terrible
had happened. Who could it be that dared to interrupt the worship? But
while she gazed and listened, there suddenly arose another sound; this
time it was a voice distinct and musical. And Isabel, relieved, sat down
again, and lent an attentive ear. The next moment she was once more on
her feet in a confusion too great to be restrained. ‘What is she saying?
what is she saying?’ she whispered in her stepmother’s ear. Jean,
habituated to the wonder, was scandalised by this excitement. She
twitched at Isabel’s cloak to drag her back to her seat. ‘Whisht! sit
down. It’s nothing but the tongue,’ she said. The girl strained her eyes
upon the listening crowd, but no one was moved as she was. She dropped
back appalled into her seat. It was Ailie who spoke; and in the intense
silence and darkness poured forth an address full of that eloquence of
intonation and expression which is perceptible in every language. ‘Is it
Latin? is it Hebrew?’ Isabel asked herself, moved by wonder, and awe,
and admiration, into an indescribable excitement. When the voice
suddenly paused, and changed and turned into ordinary utterance, there
was a little rustle of roused attention among the crowd; but Isabel
leant back upon the wall and burst into silent tears. The excitement had
been more than she could bear. When she came to herself the same fresh
youthful voice was making the room ring, and compelled her attention. It
was like bringing down to ordinary life the vague grace of youthful
fancies. When she awoke from the surprise of her excitement, and found
that Ailie was speaking so as everybody understood her, the wonder and
the mystery were gone.

‘O ye of little faith,’ cried Ailie, ‘wherefore do ye doubt? are ye
feared to go forth from the fine kirk and the comfortable meeting to the
hills and the fields? Where was it He went to commune with His Father,
that is our example? was it to biggit land, or lightsome town? No; but
to the cauld hill-side in the dark, where nothing was but God and the
stars looking down out of the lonesome sky. O the puir creatures we
are--the puir creatures! Think ye it’s for the good of this bit corner
of the earth that He has given me strength to rise up from my bed, and
poured forth the gifts o’ tongues, and teaching and prophesying upon
this parish? I was like you. He knows how laith--laith I was to come out
of the kirk I was christened in, and open my heart to the weary, wanting
world. But I take ye a’ to witness it’s no us that have begun. They have
lifted up their hands against the ark of the Lord. They’ve tried their
best to stop us in our ministry and in the salvation of souls. They’ve
scoffed and they’ve said where are the signs o’ His appearing. Look
round ye, friends, and see. Me that never learned more than my Bible--I
speak wi’ tongues--I see the things that are to come. Think ye that is
for nought? It fell on your sons and your daughters in your very
presence and is that for nought? Bear ye witness, friends, that I take
up my commission this night. Go forth into the world and preach the
Gospel to every creature, that is the command that’s given to me. Throw
off your bonds, ye that sleep--arise and let us go forth! It’s no a
question o’ a parish, or o’ a village, or o’ a kirk or a meeting, but of
His coming to be prepared and the world to be saved.’

Whether this wild but sweet voice had come to a natural pause, or
whether it was suddenly interrupted and broken by the same extraordinary
burst of sounds which had been heard before, Isabel, terrified out of
all her self-control, could not tell. She gave a suppressed scream, as
Mr. John stood up with his rigid arms stretched out and his features
convulsed with the passion of utterance whatever it was. The sound which
had alarmed her came from him, bursting from his lips as if by some
force which had no relation to his own will or meaning. The cry came
from him like the groanings and mutterings of a volcano, moved by some
unseen power. Isabel clung to her stepmother in her terror and hid her
face in her hands.

Such sounds echoing through the darkened room, over all those hushed and
eager listeners, were impressive enough to overawe any lively
imagination; and it was with her head bent down on Jean Campbell’s
shoulder, and her eyes closely shut, that Isabel heard the inarticulate
horror change into words.

‘Hear the voice of the handmaid of the Lord,’ cried Mr. John. ‘The Lord
sent His servant to her with a word from Him, saying, Go forth and
convert the world; but she would not listen. She said, Who am I that I
should go forth and preach? Thy handmaid is a child, she said. But lo!
the Lord himself hath taught her. Not to you only, O people of Loch
Diarmid; you have had the first-fruits, but the ingathering is not yet!
Like those that have not long to be with you, we turn and cry--Repent!
Repent, and be converted. You have waited long. And God has sent you
prophets, miracles, and wonders, in your midst. And lo! your moment of
privilege is nearly over, and He sends His servants forth. Repent! Oh,
that my voice were a trumpet, that it might ring into your hearts! Oh,
that it were as a rushing, mighty wind to sweep you to the Lord! We are
going forth in His name. We are going out upon the world. Give us
first-fruits--first-fruits for the Lord! Let us pray! Let us pray! Let
us pray!’

Then the darkling mass rose to their feet, and the enthusiast poured
forth his prayer. Isabel could scarcely restrain herself from joining in
the subdued outcries round her. By degrees, time and place, and all
mortal restrictions, vanished from her excited mind. What roused her was
Ailie’s voice, once more soft, pleading, sympathetic. A voice that
calmed her wild emotions, and brought her back in some degree to
herself.

‘I have wondered and wondered, and asked of the Lord,’ said Ailie, ‘what
for His gift of speaking wi’ tongues should have come to me--me that
kent nothing, that had so little way of speaking forth His praise. But
it has pleased Him to show me what He aye says, that out o’ the mouth o’
babes and sucklings His praise is perfected. Eh, neebors! I ken one
that’s like the angels of the Lord! She wants faith, but she wants
nothing else. She’s wearying, wearying to be at hame with the Lord, and
hasna the heart to rise up off her bed, and come forth wi’ me to the
salvation of men. You a’ know her as well as me! Maybe it’s Margaret’s
prayers that have brought the Spirit on this parish. Ye know how she has
prayed for us up bye at the burn, wrestling wi’ the Lord like Jacob. Eh,
freends, if I had Margaret I would go forth light as the air! Lord, give
her faith! Lord, raise her up! Lord, send thy blessed creature forth
with us! Lord, Lord, listen, and give her faith! Oh, my freends, will ye
no pray?’

At this moment Isabel’s emotion became altogether uncontrollable. It
seemed to herself as if the inspiration she had witnessed had suddenly
come upon her. She held up her hands wildly out of her dark corner where
no one could see. Then a scream burst from her lips.

‘No,’ she cried out, in a voice so strained with passion that no one
would have recognised it for hers. ‘No, no--not for Margaret; she shall
not live, she shall have her will. Leave her in peace, and let her die.’

Isabel fell like a dead creature into her stepmother’s arms, not
unconscious, with all her senses still wildly vivid, but trembling like
a leaf, and helpless as an infant. Then there was a moment of terrified
silence, and heads soon turned timidly round in the darkness to search
for the new prophet. Ailie, standing with her arms uplifted in sight of
them all, gazed intently into the gloom with her great lambent eyes,
waiting and listening for some moments after the voice had ceased. Then
the prophetess suddenly sank into the girl by a transition so
extraordinary that it caught once more the wavering attention of the
audience attracted from her by the new miracle. Her arms fell by her
side, a flood of tears came pouring from her eyes.

‘Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord! ye have never refused me before!’ said Ailie,
with a wild cry of reproach, and sank upon the floor in a burst of
weeping so helplessly natural and girl-like that the excited group
around her gazed at each other in dismay.

Her sobs were audible through all the wild supplication that followed.
But Isabel, worn out, was conscious of little more until she felt
herself drawn into the fresh air, and saw the moonlight lying white upon
the braes.




CHAPTER XII


There was little said upon the walk home. Isabel was too much exhausted
to make any reply to the questions, and half reproaches, and soothing
speeches, made in regular succession by her stepmother.

‘What put it into your head to speak out like yon? And, eh, I’m glad
naebody saw it was you. It would break my heart to hear them say the
Captain’s Isabel was gane after them. Lean heavier, my lamb. It was
naething but the love and the contradiction in your bit warm heart.
Ye’ve never been drawn to me, Isabel, but I was aye ane that kent ye had
a warm heart.’

Thus they went on clinging to each other along the white line of road
between the dark rustling whin-bushes and tough stalks of heather which
caught at their dresses as they passed. When the light in her own low
window at last appeared, a very fervent ‘God be thanked’ burst from Jean
Campbell’s lips. ‘I canna face thae awfu’ lonely roads. Ye never ken wha
ye mayna meet, face to face,’ she said as the cottage became fully
visible, her soul encouraged by the sight of it.

To go out of the magic, significant night, silent with such excess of
meaning, into the absolute stillness of the little parlour, all grey and
brown, with its one window shuttered and curtained, and the two candles
twinkling solemnly on the table, and Margaret dozing in her chair, was
the strangest contrast. The clock was still ticking steadfastly as if it
never would stop, through and through the house; little Mary, with very
large wide-open eyes, sat on a footstool opposite Margaret, from whom
she never removed her anxious gaze. ‘She’s been dozing and waking,
dozing and waking,’ said Mary; ‘and eh, but ye’ve been lang, lang!’

‘It was a lang meeting the night,’ said Jean. ‘But what way have ye
closed up the window, and Margaret sae fond of the view? I would have
gotten an awfu’ fright to see a’ dark if we had come round by the Loch.’

‘It was like as if something terrible might come and look in,’ said
little Mary, with a shudder. And then Margaret, roused by the stir,
opened her feverish bright eyes and asked what news.

‘You’ve been long,’ she said. ‘And were ye as pleased as you thought you
would be, Isabel?’

Isabel had taken off her bonnet and pushed back her hair from her aching
forehead. She looked up at her sister with the intention of replying,
and then suddenly overpowered, hid her face in her hands and burst into
tears.

‘Ah, she may well cry,’ said Jean. ‘If I was ever mair shamed in my
life! Isabel, the Captain’s daughter, and a lady born!--she was that led
away, Margaret, that she spoke like the rest.’

Isabel gave her stepmother an indignant warning look, and then rose,
throwing aside her cloak, and placed herself behind Margaret’s chair out
of reach of those eyes which she could not bear.

‘Isabel--spoke--like the rest! I cannot understand,’ said Margaret
faintly. ‘Are you meaning that it came upon her--in power?’ And the
invalid turned round wistful and wondering. Could it be that God had
passed over her in her suffering and given this gift to Isabel? Perhaps,
for the first time, there came to Margaret a touch of that strange,
wondering envy which all her friends had already felt in her behalf. She
had been content that Ailie should have the privilege denied to herself.
But Isabel! She turned and sought her sister with her eyes, wandering.
‘It is because I am not worthy,’ she said to herself, but not without a
pang.

‘It was them that were speaking of you,’ said Isabel; ‘that you wanted
faith; and that we were to pray, and that you were to be made to arise
and go forth with Ailie to convert the world. It made me mad. I couldna
sit still and keep silence. I cried out--“She shall have her will. It’s
not for you to say"--and then Mr. John said it was a lying spirit and
not from the Lord; and then I mind no more!’

‘My poor Isabel,’ said Margaret, with a smile of relief and tenderness;
‘it was true love that spoke and nothing else. But she’s not to go there
again--neither Isabel nor little Mary. It can do them nothing but harm.’

‘It does me no harm that I ken,’ said Jean. ‘It’s awfu’ exciting whiles;
but I never find myself the worse.’

‘You’re different from these young things,’ said Margaret; ‘but, oh!
you’ll always mind--both of you--that it’s my wish you should not go
there. I’m not uneasy about it from the present. After--when I’ll,
maybe, not be here to speak--you’ll both mind.’

‘Go to your bed this moment, bairn,’ cried Jean, with the petulance of
grief, ‘sitting glowering at Margaret with thae big e’en! but mind ye
dinna waken my poor Jamie going up the stair. It’s getting late, and
time we’re a’ in our beds after such a night.’

‘I am very comfortable,’ said Margaret. ‘I am not disposed to move. I’m
better here than in my bed, with that glimmer of the fire. I was always
fond of a fire. It’s like a kindly spirit with its bits of flames,
crackling and chattering. I have it in my mind to speak to you both, if
you’ll have patience and listen. Don’t contradict me, Isabel. I know I
am going fast, and why should you say no? But it would be a real comfort
to speak and tell you what I wish before I die.’

‘Oh, Margaret! anything but that,’ cried Isabel.

The invalid shook her head with an expression of pain. ‘Nothing but
this,’ she said; ‘if you want to cross me, and vex me, and drive me to
be silent, it’s in your power: but my sister will never do that. I must
speak, if you would leave my heart at rest. Dry your eyes, Isabel. I’m
selfish, but ye must yield to it. If it was you that were going, would
not your heart burn to speak before you left to them you hold dear? and
to-night you must think not of yourself, but of me.’

It was a strange group: the room so poorly lighted, with the two candles
on the table, the fire smouldering in the grate, dying into dull embers;
Margaret laid out on her invalid chair supported by pillows, her pale
face absorbing all the light there was; Jean sitting crouched together
on the stool with her honest, comely countenance, serious now and full
of anxiety, turned to her stepdaughter; and Isabel in her chair apart
against the wall, as if she were not one of them--her face visible only
in profile--her hands hanging listless in her lap--her eyes cast down.
The dying girl, who did not understand it, was wounded by her sister’s
withdrawal; and yet what did it matter?--perhaps it left her more free
to speak than if Isabel’s tender eyes had been searching out the
meaning in her face before she could utter it? Even the irritation and
half-estrangement of a grief too poignant to be submissive, Margaret
could understand.

‘I am thinking most of Bell,’ she said. ‘I’ve always thought most of
Bell. It was natural. There were but the two of us in the world. And
I’ve always been a woman, you’ll mind. When she was but a bairn playing
on the hill-side, I was like her mother. That was my nature; and now the
sorest thought I have is to leave her without a guide in this hard
world.’

Isabel could not speak--but she made a hasty, deprecating gesture with
her hand.

‘You would say, no,’ said Margaret; ‘but, Isabel, I know best. I am not
vaunting myself, but I know best. For a while past you’ve been that you
did not understand yourself. Your heart has been breaking to part with
me, and yet you could not bear the sight of me. It is wearying to
everybody when a poor creature takes so long to die. Oh, Bell, dinna say
a word! Do you think I doubt you? I’m speaking of nature. And when I’m
gone--so young as you are, and so hasty, and so feeling;--you’ve been a
trouble to yourself and a mystery already, and what will you be then,
with none near you to turn it all over in their minds?’

‘If there’s only me,’ said Isabel, gazing into the vacant air before
her, ‘who will care?’

‘I’ll care wherever I am,’ said Margaret. ‘Oh, you canna think I could
be happy in Heaven and my bonnie Bell in pain or sorrow. If you could
but harden your heart against the movements that come and go--if ye
would but take patience and think before you put your hand to aught. You
were aye so hasty and so innocent. Do you mind when Robbie Spence fell
into the Loch, and her after him in a boat before a man could move?’

‘Ay, do I,’ said Jean, ‘and our ain Jamie when he broke his arm----’

‘It was Isabel that carried him home, that big laddie!’ said Margaret
with pathetic smiles and tears; ‘aye hasty, though she was so young and
so slight; but there’s worse danger than that. Ye might take burdens
upon you that would be harder to carry. Oh, my bonnie Bell! if I could
but have seen you in a good man’s hands!’

‘I’ll not hear you speak,’ cried Isabel, almost wildly; ‘am I wanting
any man?’

‘If you would promise to take thought before you made up your mind,’
said Margaret; ‘I’m no myself when I think of my Isabel in trouble. If
you would go to your room, and take a while to think. I canna tell
what’s beyond the veil, nor what’s permitted _yonder_; but, Bell, I
would aye promise you this--not to _appear_ to be a terror to you. But
if you would take time to think, and shut to your door, and say to
yourself, “Margaret loved me well. She’s been dead and gone for years
and years, but she couldna forget her sister wherever she is. What would
Margaret say if she were here?” And, Bell, I promise you this--not to
frighten you, or appear like one coming from the dead, but to draw near
and let you know what I’m thinking. Always if it is permitted--I canna
tell.’

‘Oh, Margaret! Margaret! I will die too,’ cried Isabel, suddenly
throwing herself at her sister’s feet; ‘I can bear no more.’

‘No, there’s plenty more to bear,’ said her sister, caressing the head
which was buried in her coverings. ‘You cannot get out of the world like
that. It is me that has the easy task. I have but to bide quiet and let
Him do a’--me that took pride in being the wisest of the two, and able
to guide you. And it is you that will have all to bear. But, Bell, it’s
a promise--you’ll mind when the time comes? I will not say, Take this
one or take that, for the heart is free. But take thought, Isabel!--oh,
my darling, take thought; and I’ll always give you my opinion, not in
your ear like the living that are bound in the flesh--but into your
heart. And now,’ she added, raising herself a little, with a cheerful
tone in her voice, ‘I have but two or three more words to say.’

Isabel did not move nor speak. She had her face hid in the coverlid as
if she were weeping. But she did not weep. Her eyes were blazing,
covered by her hands, like stars, parched with drought, almost fiery in
their light; her heart beat with the violence of a creature at the
fullest height of life. But no one saw those wild heavings; she knelt
there with her face hidden, and only her soft hair, which had fallen
into disorder, within reach of Margaret’s hectic hand.

‘You’ll aye take care of her as long as may be,’ Margaret went on
addressing Jean. ‘When she’s older she’ll understand. It is just that
all should be hers--everything we have; but she’ll not depart from my
desire about Jamie, you may be sure of that. And, Isabel, you’ll no
rebel, but let her be good to you, all her days. And be a good sister to
the bairns. I’m real foolish,’ she went on, with a smile; ‘as if me
being away would make such a change--I’m real vain. But you’ll no blame
me, you two.’

‘Blame you!’ said Jean, with her handkerchief to her eyes; ‘O Margaret,
you’re ower thoughtfu’; but it was that the callant should be bred for a
minister? that was what you meant?’

‘If he turns his mind to it,’ said Margaret. ‘And I think that is all.
You’ll be good to _her_, Bell, and she’ll be good to you. And keep
little Mary out of the meetings. She’s very keen and bright, brighter
than Jamie. You’ll not let her go astray. And be kind to everybody for
my sake,’ Margaret said with a smile, which touched the very extremity
of self-control, and had a certain flicker almost of delirium in it--‘I
am fit for no more.’




CHAPTER XIII


During the week that ensued various events happened in the parish which
kept up the local excitement. The prophets, who up to this time had been
in external subjection to the authorities, at the first mention of
restriction had thrown off all bonds. Mild as was the attempted control
it was more than they could bear, and no sooner had they thus
emancipated themselves from all habitual restraint than their higher
pretensions began to develop.

The intimation that Ailie was about to set out on a mission to the
general world could not but be exciting information to the parish; and
at the same time there was an arrival of pilgrims from that outer world
to inquire into the marvel. Commissions of investigation had already
come from the Presbytery of the district, and even from Edinburgh and
Glasgow, the news having spread quickly at a moment of general religious
excitement; but the inquirers from England, one of whom was soon
discovered to be ‘an English minister,’ produced a more marked
impression, and thrilled the Loch with indescribable pride.

Margaret was sinking day by day. She had made her last step on the
grass, taken her last draught of the fresh mountain air out of doors.
From day to day it seemed impossible that she should ever again totter
from one room to the other; and yet she managed to do it, retaining her
hold upon her domestic place with a tenacity quite unlike the feebleness
of her hold upon life. Sometimes, indeed, she had to be carried to the
sofa in the parlour, from which she could still gain a glimpse of the
Loch, and feel herself one of the family; but she would not relinquish
this last stronghold of existence. ‘It will be time enough to shut me up
when I’m gone,’ she would say, smiling upon them; and the doctor’s
orders had been that she should be humoured in everything. ‘Nothing can
harm her now,’ he had said, with that mournful abandonment of
precaution, which shows the death of hope. And the parish--nay, ‘the
whole Loch,’ held its breath and looked on.

As for Isabel it seemed to her that she lived in a dreadful dream. The
vague terror that had been hanging over her so long had settled down,
and could no longer be escaped; it seemed years to her since the time
when she had believed it might not be--or at least hoped that it might
have been delayed.

Perhaps it was because Jean Campbell, too, was in something of the same
stupor of exhausted nature, produced by constant watching and want of
sleep, that one visitor, whom they had guarded against for days, found
his way to Margaret’s bedside. The children had been set to watch on the
road, to warn the cottage if the very shadow of Mr. John fell upon the
hill, and had repeatedly brought back news of him, which set the
watchers on their guard. But, as it happens so often when such a watch
goes on for days, there came a moment when the little scouts thought of
something else, and when all other visitors were absent, and the road
left open for the enemy. Jean had withdrawn to her kitchen while
Margaret slept, or seemed to sleep--and had thrown herself, worn out,
into the great arm-chair covered with checked linen, where she nodded by
the fire. Isabel sat at the foot of the sofa, with her eyes on her
sister. And those eyes, too, were veiled by the drooping eyelids, in the
fatigue and awful tedium of the protracted watch. Thus the anxious
household slumbered at its post, overtaken by weariness and security.
How long the doze lasted none of them could tell, but when some faint
movement of her sister’s made Isabel start from her insensibility, it
froze the blood in her heart, and almost woke her to positive exertion,
to see the man they all feared seated by the sofa on which Margaret lay.
He had lifted the latch, and come in noiselessly, while they all slept
in their exhaustion. There was still light enough to show his dark face,
gazing intently upon the white vision on the sofa. All the hectic had
gone from Margaret’s cheek. She was as pale as if the end had already
come, and lay with her blue-veined eyelids ajar, as it were, the long
lashes a little raised from the white cheeks, the pale lips parted with
her painful breath. Mr. John sat by the side of the sofa, shadowing over
her like a destroying angel. Had it been Death himself in person, the
sight could scarcely have been more startling. His countenance was
working in every line with suppressed but violent emotion, his lips were
moving, his eyes fixed intently upon the face of the sleeper. He had
stretched out one hand over Margaret’s couch, not touching her, like one
who gave a benediction or enforced a command. Isabel sat and watched,
paralysed by the sight. There seemed no power in her to stir or speak.
And Margaret still slept, moving sometimes uneasily under that gaze,
which seemed capable of penetrating the insensibility of death, but
never unclosing her liquid, half-seen eyes, or giving any sign of
consciousness. By degrees, half-audible words began to drop from the
prophet’s lips.

‘Life, life!’ Isabel could hear him say. ‘My life for hers! My salvation
for her life!’

The passion in him gradually became less controllable. It was with God
he was struggling, with a vehemence of desire which left no room for
reason or for reverence. After a while, he slid downwards upon his
knees, always noiseless in the supreme urgency of his passion. He held
his hand up over the couch, maintaining the painful attitude with a
rigidity beyond all ordinary power.

‘I will not let Thee go, till Thou bless her--till Thou save her!’
Isabel heard him say.

All this appeared suddenly before her, awaking out of her dream. There
was not a sound in the house, except the clock ticking through all with
its monotonous, merciless beat, and Margaret’s irregular breathing, now
louder, now lower, a fitful human accompaniment. At last, the power of
self-control could go no further.

‘Rise, rise, woman beloved!’ he cried, hoarsely, springing to his feet.
‘I’ve won you out of the hands of Death!’

The harsh agony of the cry woke Margaret. He was standing between her
and the faint light from the window, bending down over her from his
great height with outstretched arms: his face invisible in the darkness
which was made doubly dark by his shadow. Thus suddenly called back from
her temporary oblivion, she woke with a little start. ‘Isabel!’ she
said, instinctively. And then in a moment it became apparent to Margaret
that another ordeal had come to her worse than the paroxysms of failing
breath or palpitating heart in which Isabel could help her. With an
instinctive thought for her sister, she raised herself slightly upon her
pillows. ‘My dear, my dear, you’re not to blame,’ said Margaret, with a
little moan. She had hoped to get out of the world without this trial,
but now that it had come it must be borne.

‘She is not to blame,’ said Mr. John. ‘Nobody is to blame. I came
stealing in like a thief in the night: they shut me out from you as if I
would harm you--I that am ready to give my life for you. Margaret,
arise! I’ve won you out of the hands of Death!’

‘Oh, if you would not waste this madness on me!’ said Margaret. ‘Isabel,
let him stay. Death thinks no shame and feels no fear. I’m glad that I
can speak to him before I go. John Diarmid, dinna drive me wild. This
life is no so grand a gift that I should seek it out of your hands.
God’s will is more to me than your will. Sit down by my death-bed; and
oh, man, be silent, if ye have any heart! It’s for me to speak now.’

‘I will do what you will--whatever you will,’ he said: ‘Margaret! if you
will but listen to the Lord’s voice and rise up and live! Can I stand by
and see you die?’

A little impatient sigh burst from Margaret’s breast. ‘You stood by,’
she said, ‘once before, and took all the light and all the sweetness out
of life. For once I will speak. I have been proud, but it’s not the time
for pride now. O, John Diarmid, it is fit it should be your hand to call
me back to life as you call it! I would never have upbraided you--no,
not by a word. It was a thing settled you were never to come here. But
now I will speak before I die.’

‘Speak!’ he cried, going down upon his knees with a crouch of submission
in his great frame. ‘Say what you will. I am vile to all and vilest to
you. You are as God to me, Margaret, Margaret! But take the life I have
won for you and never see me more.’

‘The life you have won!’ said Margaret, with a tone which in any other
voice would have been disdain. But her voice was like that of a dove,
and had no notes of scorn in it. Yet soft as the approach to contempt
was, the dying girl was remorseful of it. ‘I must not speak like this,’
she said; ‘and you must not speak to rouse the ill spirit in me, and me
so near the pleasant heavens. Whisht! I canna think shame now, though
Isabel is there to hear. John Diarmid, once I was as nigh loving you as
now----’

‘You’re nigh hating me!’ he said, with a great sob breaking his voice.

‘No; as I’m nigh being free of all the bonds of this world,’ said
Margaret. ‘I was little more than a bairn; I was like Bell. They said
you meant me harm; but I never thought you meant me harm----’

As the pathetic voice went on John Diarmid bowed his head lower and
lower till at last he sank prostrate on the floor by the side of the
sofa. It was her last words that brought him to this abject
self-humiliation. He knew better than she did. A groan burst out of the
man’s labouring breast. Even Isabel--sitting in a trance at her sister’s
feet, roused up out of her stupor, her cheeks burning with a wild flush
of jealousy and shame, half-wild that Margaret had descended from her
saintly pedestal to avow the emotions of earth, and furious to think
that any man had shared her heart--yet felt an unwilling movement of
pity for the prostrate sinner. Margaret only continued without any
change.

‘I never thought you meant me harm,’ she said, once more smiting with
the awful rod of her innocence the man at her feet. ‘But when I heard
what you had been, and what you had done, the light died out of the
world. I am not blaming you. It was God that gave me my death, and not
man; but from that hour I had no heart to live. Why should a woman
strive to live, and fight against all the unseen powers, when this
world’s so sore-defiled, and not a spot that she can set her foot
on,--no one that she can trust? For me I had no heart to struggle more.’

A certain note of plaintive self-consciousness had come into the steady
voice, broken only by weakness, with which Margaret told her tale, as if
it were a history so long past that all emotion had died out of it. And
so it was. Her almost love had faded in her heart; but there still
remained a sense of pity for the young forlorn creature whose eyes had
been thus opened, and of whom Margaret had half-forgotten that it was
herself.

For the moment in her abstraction, in her deadly calm, she was well-nigh
cruel. She took no notice of the man who lay abject at her feet, with
his face to the ground. Her great spiritual eyes in those pale circles
which approaching death had hallowed out, gazed wistfully into the
darkness. Perhaps it was the convulsive movement of the prostrate figure
by her which roused her at last. Suddenly she stirred, and, putting out
a white thin hand, laid it softly on his bowed head. ‘John Diarmid,’ she
said, softly, ‘are you walking with God now?’

He seized her hand, raising his head from where he lay, and knelt
upright by her, pressing it to his breast, which heaved violently as
with sobs. What compunction was in his heart, what sudden knowledge of
himself, what remorse, no one could say. It was dark, and they were to
each other as ghosts in the gloom. Margaret could see his gestures, but
nothing more; if, indeed, anything more could have been learnt from the
bent head and hidden countenance. Her voice grew softer and softer when
she broke the silence again.

‘I know you’re moved to the heart,’ she said. ‘I am not doubting you
_now_. You are changed, and I see you’re changed. And if you would but
tell me there were no more such thoughts in your heart, and that you
were walking with God--then I would feel there were some prayers
answered before I die.’

‘You have prayed for me, Margaret!’ he cried. The passionate man was
subdued to a child. His great frame was shaken by sobs; his eyes were
wet with tears. He had not another word to say; his passion, his
inspiration, all the prophetic pretensions which clothed him, had
vanished like so many cobwebs. He knelt by the purest love of his life
with a heart broken and speechless. She dying, and he without power to
save.

‘Aye!’ she said, laying her hand once more upon his head; and then there
was silence broken only by the groan or sob that came from John
Diarmid’s heart.

The next minute familiar sounds and sights broke in. Jean Campbell, with
a candle in her hand, came pushing open the closed door. ‘Eh, you’re in
the dark, like craws in the mist,’ she said, as she approached.

At the sound of her voice John Diarmid sprang to his feet, rising like a
giant out of the darkness. He bent down his head suddenly over Margaret,
pressed his motionless lips to her forehead, with a movement of despair,
which was no kiss, and passing the astonished woman who held up her
candle to look at him, rushed forth like the wind, letting the night and
the chill air enter as he plunged forth.

How long Jean might have stood spell-bound by consternation, but for
this sudden puff of cold air which blew about the flame of her candle,
it is impossible to say; but she was roused instantly by fear of the
cold for Margaret, and ran in haste to close the doors.

‘Weirdless loon!’ she cried, as she came back, ‘without so much sense as
to think the cauld would harm her. Eh, Isabel, how could you let him in
to vex her? It was a’ my fault dovering and sleeping in my chair. My
lamb, ye’re weariet to death?’

‘Aye, very near to death,’ said Margaret, with a smile; ‘but there’s
nobody to blame; and I’m glad I saw him at the last.’

‘So lang as he didna drive you distracted wi’ his prophecies and his
miracles,’ said Jean, looking anxiously with wistful eyes from one to
another. Isabel had risen at her stepmother’s entrance, and drying the
tears from her cheeks, hastily began to arrange the coverings over her
sister; she shrank from Jean’s look, feeling herself somehow to blame,
and angry at the thought that had the other watcher been awake this
trial would not have come to Margaret. But, as for Margaret herself, she
made no effort to avoid Jean’s eye; she lay back on her pillows panting
sometimes for breath, with a humid softness about her great shining eyes
and a quivering smile on her lips. Very nearly tired to death; and yet
ever patient, waiting till a little more should achieve the end.




CHAPTER XIV


When Mr. John rushed from the door of the Glebe Cottage mad with grief
and sorrow and a sense of impotence, it was not to return to his home or
to enter upon any of his usual duties, even such as might have seemed
akin to the passion and excitement in his mind. He went up the hill-side
without knowing where he went, rushing into the clouds and rain which
were sweeping across the invisible braes.

The dark waters of Loch Goil were glimmering just before him ere he
arrested his steps; he had climbed and descended the hill without
knowing how; he was drenched to the skin, beaten by the wind, wild, half
crazed with the multitude of his thoughts; all his new-born sense of
power, all his confidence in his changed condition, were gone. He was a
man abandoned by hope, and at the same time a prophet forsaken of the
Lord. It had been not quite six o’clock when he left the Glebe. It was
nearly midnight now when he forced his way through the tough stalks of
the heather, crushing them down with his feet, stumbling into the
forests of whins, going wildly through the yellowing brackens. Wild
creatures rushed out of their coverts as he crossed the braes; it was
too dark to see any path, even had he cared to confine himself to it.
All was silent and black when he drew near the first inhabited place,
the little cluster of cottages above the Manse to which he directed his
steps. It was there that Ailie Macfarlane, his co-adjutatrix and
predecessor, lived with her father and mother. Not a light was visible
in any window. The little congregation of souls, wrapt in the kind
protecting darkness, slept and took no note of all the surrounding
mysteries of the night. Mr. John went up to Ailie’s door and knocked,
waking echoes which seemed to go over all the parish, and rousing the
dogs at Lochhead out of the light sleep of their vigilance. It was some
time before he had any reply. Then the lattice window, which was on a
level with the door, was softly opened. It was Ailie herself who looked
out, her fair locks braided about her head like a saint in a picture.

‘Who are ye? what do ye want?’ she said, with a certain anxiety in her
voice. ‘Is it a summons to me too?’

Mr. John was too much pre-occupied to observe what she said, but he
discerned the signs of some emotion, and took it for fear.

‘Fear me not,’ he said, ‘I’ve come, from wrestling with the Lord upon
the hill--and, Ailie, I have a message from Him to you. Fear me not.’

‘I’m fearing nothing,’ said the girl, with momentary surprise--for even
had she not been protected by her exceptional character, to speak with
‘a friend’ from a chamber window, even in the middle of the night, was
counted no sin on Loch Diarmid. ‘I’m fearing nothing,’ she repeated,
steadily, ‘but my heart’s sore and my een are heavy. Say quick what you
have to say.’

‘It must be said to-night,’ he said; ‘I speak not of my will, and I will
not ask you what is yours. Ailie, the Lord has revealed to me that you
and I must go forth together to His work, bound together like Christ and
His Church. You cannot go alone for you’re young and weak. He has
appointed me to you for a protector. He has said unto me, O man, fear
not to take unto thee thy wife! Ailie, this word is to me and to thee.
Prepare! I would go forth, if that were possible, as soon as it is day.’

Then there was a pause. The clouds parted, driven by the angry wind, and
the sky lightened faintly with a pale gleam which showed the man’s worn
face and wild aspect as he stood before the window.

‘Oh, no, no,’ she cried; ‘we must wait. There will be clearer light. If
such a thing as this is to be, it will be established in the mouth of
two or three witnesses. I wouldna trust to myself, my lane. Oh, no, no;
we must wait for clearer light.’

‘Take heed that ye perish not from lack of faith,’ said Mr. John. ‘Take
heed that you despise not the Lord’s message. Ailie Macfarlane, hear the
Word of the Lord! and see ye sin not against the Holy Ghost.’

A shudder ran through Ailie’s sensitive frame. ‘No,’ she cried, ‘no, no,
never that. I’m His handmaid to do His pleasure. But oh, there’s nought
can be done this night. The night’s for rest and thought and prayer. It
may be the Lord will show His will to me too. And there’s my father and
my mother,’ cried Ailie with a little gush of tears.

‘Let the dead bury their dead,’ said her extraordinary suitor, in a
voice which seemed to ring round the house like a groan. And then he
added with a tone of authority which struck chill to Ailie’s heart:
‘Hitherto you have been a law to yourself, and no man has been set over
you; but the wife must take the Lord’s will through her husband who is
her head.’

Ailie fell down on her knees trembling, and held fast by the sill of the
window.

‘I am no man’s wife,’ she cried; ‘and I’m feared and bewildered, and see
naething clear. Oh, for the Lord’s sake, gang away from me for this
night!’

Mr. John turned his eyes which had been fixed on the pale opening in the
clouds to her face. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll go; the flesh can bear no
more. Go on your knees to Him, and not to me. And He may make it clear
to you if He thinks fit; but in light or in darkness I call on you to
obey. Is His servant to stand still because there is no light?’

‘I’ll pray!’ cried Ailie, with a gasp. And he withdrew from the window,
stumbling over the little flower-borders in the cottage-garden, and
gazing vaguely up into the white break in the sky. His haggard, pale
face fascinated her in its abstraction. She rose, and closed her window
with nervous hands, still gazing at him; when suddenly another window
opened--that of the attic over the cottage door.

‘Wha’s there?’ cried a voice. Instinctively Ailie shrank back, but yet
kept her ear at the opening that she might hear. It was the voice of her
mother, who had been roused by the conversation below.

‘Wha are ye, disturbing honest folk in the middle of the night, and what
do you want here?’

‘It’s me,’ said Mr. John, raising his head listlessly. ‘I was sent to
her with a word from the Lord.’

Old Janet Macfarlane uttered a hasty exclamation. ‘I’m meaning no
reproach to you, Mr. John; but I wish your words would come in the day.’

Mr. John made no answer. He stepped over the paling once more, and
paused at the door immediately under the old woman’s window. Fatigue was
beginning to tell upon him: his passion was dying out. He had no longer
any strength to defend himself. Perhaps Janet’s heart smote her as she
saw his listless step; or perhaps the natural rural impulse of
communicating information was her only motive. She paused a moment,
searching in her mind something keen and sharp to say to him--but
finding nothing, bent out from her window over the leafy, embowered
porch.

‘Mr. John,’ she said, with solemnity; ‘nae doubt you’ve heard the news?’

‘What news?’

‘Margaret at the Glebe is wi’ her Saviour,’ said the old woman. ‘She
died at ten o’clock. Good night.’

The noise of the window closing rang over all the silent Loch and silent
heavens, and went echoing, echoing away into the hollows of the hills.
It struck the man in his despair like the thunder of dissolving earth
and Heaven.




CHAPTER XV


The death of Margaret Diarmid had been, as people say, sudden at the
last. Whether the agitation of that visit had been too much for her, or
if Nature at the end, having lingered so long, had succumbed in a moment
to some unseen touch, it was impossible to tell. She was dead--that was
all that could be said. Things had gone on as usual all the evening
through in the dim parlour, where Jean came in from time to time to see
that all was safe, and Isabel moved softly about at the appointed hours
with her cordials and her medicines. Margaret had been lying, as her
stepmother had left her, with her large, humid, wistful eyes fixed,
taking less notice of everything around than usual, looking out, as it
were, into an unseen world of her own. An intense quietness had fallen
upon the house. The children had been sent early to bed; and Jenny
Spence, who had volunteered to assist in the watch, was comfortably
installed in the big elbow-chair by the fire in the kitchen. ‘We’re
better without her,’ Jean had whispered to Isabel; ‘but it’s a real
pleasure to her, and she’s a connection; and she’ll no disturb
Margaret.’ Jean herself had taken up her position, wrapt in her cloak,
just within the parlour door. It was usual for them, at an earlier hour
than this, to remove their patient to bed. But Margaret had been so
still that they had hesitated to disturb her. ‘By and by,’ she had said
to them softly, as she lay there with her white face upturned, and her
open eyes. She was not asleep; but so quiet, so smiling, breathing so
calmly. Could it be that she had taken ‘a good turn?’ Isabel, seated at
the foot of the sofa, her duties over for the moment, kept her watch,
praying mechanically, dozing by moments, stupified by grief and
weariness. Jean behind backs saw nothing of what was passing. But after
a time the stillness became intolerable, and weighed upon her. Her first
impulse was to steal out to the kitchen and rouse Jenny Spence, and
console herself with a melancholy talk over the fire; and then she
bethought herself that it would be cruel to leave Isabel in this
atmosphere, which somehow seemed all at once so strangely chilled and
silent. Listening intently, it seemed to her that she heard no breathing
but her own. Margaret’s hardest paroxysms would have sounded natural and
consoling in place of that awful stillness. Jean’s heart began to throb
in her ears, and her eyes to dazzle. It was some time before she could
move. When she at last summoned her powers and roused herself, it was
all clear to her in a moment. The strange silence, the sudden chill, had
been death; but thus the long illness, which all the parish expected was
to have a triumphant and victorious conclusion, ended softly in the
silence, without sound of trumpet or demonstration of exceeding joy.

As for Isabel there was an interval, unfortunately for her a very short
interval, in which she was conscious of nothing. Not that the simple,
healthful girl, trained in stern Scotch self-restraint, found refuge in
any swoon or fit of bodily unconsciousness. But fatigue had so worn and
bewildered her, and benumbed all her faculties, that she was incapable
of any fresh sensation. The kind women took her to her bed, and the
young creature, all broken and worn, slept the heavy sleep of sorrow,
that profound, joyless slumber which pain and suffering bring to young
eyes. When she woke, it was not with any fresh pang: she had carried the
sense of ‘what had happened’ with her throughout her sleep--but with
still the same heavy, listless, benumbed sensations. Sometimes, when she
started involuntarily at the thought that it was time for Margaret’s
wine, or her soup, or her medicine, her heart thus sharply pricked would
rouse up, and her eyes gain relief in the measureless tears of youth.
But she did not come to herself for days, scarcely until the time of
darkness was over, and the procession had gone out from the cottage
doors, and her sister was carried away from her, while she herself
remained behind. Then her life sprang again out of excess of pain.

It was about a week after the funeral when Jean came in, solemnly
tapping at the parlour door, where Isabel sat alone. She was arrayed in
her new black gown, and with her freshest cap, and had a certain air of
gravity and importance about her. She came in softly and stood by
Isabel, half-behind her as she sat at the table. ‘Isabel, my bonnie
woman,’ she said, turning her homely voice to its softest cadence, ‘it’s
time we were having a talk, you and me, about what we’re to do.’

‘What should we do?’ said Isabel; ‘but sit down and tell me what it is:
it’s weary, weary to sit alone.’

‘My lamb!’ said Jean, furtively smoothing the girl’s soft hair. It was
seldom she ventured on such a proof of sympathy, for Isabel was proud.
But she did not sit down; she stood with some agitation, twisting the
table-cover from the table, shifting from one foot to another. At last
her burden came forth with a burst. ‘It’s best I should ken; it’s a’
yours now, Isabel; and you were never that fond of me and the poor
bairns. I’m your father’s wife, and I’m no a lady born like you; but I’m
one that would never thole to be where she wasna wanted. Whisht!
whisht; I’m no misdoubting your kindness; for her sake I ken you would
aye be kind; but if there was to be a change I would like best it should
be now.’

‘Why should there be a change?’ said Isabel, weeping. ‘Oh, is there not
change enough to please you? Would you like me to stay my lane in this
still house and die? But I could not die--I would go wild; and, maybe,
you would not care.’

‘As if I didna care for everything belonging to ye!’ cried Jean, once
more timidly caressing her stepdaughter’s bent head. ‘If it was only
_that_, I would be content to be your servant--as near your servant as
would be becoming to the Captain’s widow,’ she added, after a momentary
pause. ‘But your heart’s touched and tender the noo; and if, after, you
should reflect on me for taking advantage of you, or anybody else should
reflect----’

‘Who is there that has any right’ cried hasty Isabel, drying her tears
with hot and trembling hand. ‘There’s but me now in all the world, and
no one that can bid me go or come, or do this or that. Ah, me!’

‘It’s a grand thing to be free,’ said Jean, her voice faltering a
little; ‘free o’ them you’re bound to by any bonds but what God has
made. When it’s nature it’s different--or when it’s your free choice
it’s different; but you and me, Isabel, are free to meet and free to
part. I’m no saying but what it would be a sore heartbreak; but if ever
there was to come a time when you would reflect----’

‘Oh, dinna speak,’ said Isabel; ‘if it’s your will to leave me, go, and
let me take my chance. If I was to go out of my senses or die on the
hill-side, what is that to other folk? There is none to care if I was
mad or dead to-morrow. If you speak because you’re wearied of me and my
silly ways----’

‘Oh, Isabel, my lamb!’ cried Jean, with tears, ‘I’m saying I would be
your servant if that was a’. But you maun tell me your will plain if
we’re to go or stay. A’s yours. If we live here, the bairns and me, it’s
upon you; and that I canna do unless you say plain out--Bide; and let
things be as they have aye been.’

‘Is there anything else I could say?’ cried Isabel; ‘maybe you’ve
forgotten already what was said to you and me--yon night? But I will
never forget. Nothing is changed but one thing. Oh, no, I am saying
wrong--the heavens and the earth are changed and all’s different--all’s
different!--but not between you and me. And I’ll mind about Jamie,’ she
added, once more hotly and tremulously, drying her eyes. ‘He’s to be
brought up for a minister, if he has a desire to it. We’ll speak to Mr.
Lothian, or Mr. Galbraith, and I’ll not forget.’

Jean shook her head softly behind her stepdaughter’s back.

‘I’m no speaking of Jamie now,’ she said; ‘afore he’s old enough you’ll
have a man, Isabel, that may have other meanings. But I’m aye thankful
to you for the thought. And a young lass is real solitary by herself.
I’ll bide since you say sae; and weel content; but when the time comes
that you’re married, my woman, we’ll speak of that no more.’

‘The time will never come,’ said Isabel, hastily. ‘I have had my share
of life. I am not like a young lass now.’

‘My bonnie lamb!’ said Jean, with a tender smile, letting her hand rest
on the downcast head. It was that last touch of self-pity which broke
down Isabel’s reserve. She turned suddenly round, and throwing her arms
round her stepmother wept and sobbed on her homely bosom. She clung to
her as to her last support, and Jean received her in her motherly arms.
Her heart had warmed to the wayward Isabel, all through her faulty youth
with a love less reverent, but more familiar than that she had given to
Margaret. And now a common grief united them as they had never been
united before. She held the girl close, repeating over and over those
soft names of homely kindness.

‘My lamb!’ she said, ‘my bonnie Bell! my bonnie woman!’ and bent down
her head over her, not with the lavish caress of a lighter nature, but
with a strong sustaining pressure. When the sobs grew fainter, and
exhaustion mercifully dulled the pain, it was she who smoothed her hair,
and dried her wet cheeks, and gave her such comfort as she could bear.

‘Come ben beside the bairns,’ Jean said, drying the tears from her own
eyes, ‘and leave this room that is so full of a’ that’s passed. There’s
a cheery fire, and the wee things’ faces are aye a comfort. That was
_her_ thought: and I’ll make you your cup of tea, and we’ll do our best
to bear the burden for her sake.’

There was a cheery fire, as Jean had said, and Isabel was cold with that
chill of grief which penetrates into the very heart. The blaze and the
warmth gave her a little forlorn consolation; and so after awhile did
the sound of voices other than her own, and the care and service that
surrounded her.

Jean attended her to her room when it was time for rest, as she would
have done had Isabel been her own child, and gave her one of those rare
shy kisses, of which the homely Scotch matron was half-ashamed in her
intense reticence and self-control. ‘Try and sleep, my lamb,’ she said,
‘I’ll come back and put out the candle.’ And then she returned to her
kitchen, to shut her shutters, and put the ‘gathering coal’ upon the
fire, and make all snug for the night. When she had ended her silent
labours, Jean took her moment of indulgence also, sitting down to think
in the elbow-chair, by the side of the dark heaped-up smouldering fire.

‘Na, na,’ she said to herself, ‘I maunna trust to that. If Margaret had
set it apart out of her share--but I’m no reflecting upon Margaret. It
was a’ the first wife’s siller, and it’s Isabel’s by right; and I dinna
doubt her bit warm hasty heart. But if she were to marry that English
lad, me and mine would be little to her after; and if she was to marry
anybody else--even the minister--he would be for thinking of his ain
first, and maybe a family coming. It would be real natural. Na, na! I
maunna trust to Isabel; and, maybe, after a’ it’s best for the laddie,’
she said to herself, with a sigh. ‘If the root o’ the matter’s in him,
he’ll fight his way to it; and if it’s no, he’ll never try; and when a’
‘s said and done, maybe that’s the best.’

But it was with a sigh she rose from that moment of reflection and stole
back to remove the candle, and saw with affectionate pleasure that
Isabel, worn out, had already dropped to sleep. ‘The poor bairn!’ Jean
said, in her tenderness, and clambered up to the attic beside her
children, with that sense of being the protector and sole guardian of so
much helplessness, which fills the heart of a solitary woman with such
softness and such strength.




CHAPTER XVI


The next step in Isabel’s solitary new life was the visit of Miss
Catherine, whose entrance Jean permitted a few days earlier than decorum
properly allowed.

‘After a’, she’s a connection, and the poor bairn’s best support,’ she
said, as she went, wiping her hands on her apron, to open the door to
the visitor. ‘Oh, ay, Miss Catherine! come your ways ben; she’ll be glad
of a kind word. She’s no suffered that much in her health--God be
thankit! But whiles my heart breaks to see her in that weary parlour her
lane, and nothing to wile her from her ain thoughts.’

‘I had not the courage to come sooner,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘But, Jean,
we must not leave her to her own thoughts.’

There could be but one way of meeting for the two. Isabel stood up for
an instant with a nervous attempt at composure, and then dropped weeping
into her old friend’s extended arms: and there was first the inevitable
attempt at consolation, tender words and encouragements. ‘It’s well with
her--it’s better for her. We must not mourn, for her sake.’

‘And now tell me, my dear,’ said Miss Catherine, when poor Isabel had
wept herself into quietness, ‘how you’ve settled with Jean? You are
young, and it will be a strange life for you here by yourself. Is it
settled that everything is to go on as it has been?’

‘Why should there be any change?’ said Isabel. ‘It is her house as long
as it is mine. Is she not the nearest I have left?--and, oh, she’s kind!
though I have never been good to her all my life.’

‘She is not a drop’s blood to you,’ said Miss Catherine, with some
warmth. ‘Isabel, I’m not one to bid you run away from grief; it’s a vain
thing to do; but you’re young, and you have a sufficiency, and why
should you be burdened with the second family? I had nothing to say
against it in the past. Jean was aye kind, poor woman. But I cannot bear
to think of you staying here in this room after all that’s come and
gone.’

Isabel made no answer. She took up her work with trembling fingers, and
made an effort to go on with it, while the visitor, for her part, had
enough to do to master the sob in her voice.

‘You are so young,’ she said; ‘you cannot know what you want, or what is
best for you. I know a poor gentlewoman in Edinburgh, Isabel, that would
be very kind to you. A change would be good, though you cannot think it
now. Making and mending is grand work for the mother of a family, but
for a young creature alone, it is not to be thought of as an occupation.
And there are things you might learn that would fit you for your life to
come. How can you tell what your life will be? Your blood, my dear, is
as good by the mother’s side as mine; and if you saw a little of the
world--You’re a proud thing, Isabel, you’ll not allow you want anything;
but the change would do you good, and the novelty would divert your
mind----’

‘As if I was asking to be diverted!’ said Isabel. ‘Oh! Miss Catherine,
if it’s like that you think of me! I am seeking no change. My life, the
best of it, is past. What have I to think about but how to be quiet and
do my duty, and consider my latter end?’

‘Oh, bairn! that you should be such a bairn!’ said Miss Catherine; ‘if
it were not for what you’ve gone through, I could find it in my heart to
be angry. Twenty years after this you’ll not be so sure that your life
is past, nor think so much about your latter end. What is likely is
that you have a long life before you; and by and by you’ll marry, as
most women do. I don’t say now--you’re thinking of nothing of the kind
now; but when due time has past, and you have shown the respect you
ought--You may think me heartless to speak so, but I’m not heartless,
Isabel.’

‘I cannot understand what you are saying,’ said Isabel. ‘Oh, let me be!
I am at home, and among my ain folk. I neither want change nor
diversion--nor to be married--nor a new life! If there is one thing I
would like, it would be to work late and early and take care of the
house. But I am too old to learn lessons now, and I am not old enough to
be always thinking about myself.’

‘Perhaps it’s best for the present,’ said Miss Catherine, finally giving
in, ‘though I always think when there are changes to be made it is well
to make them at once. You think you can go on for ever like this, and
you’ll find you are far wrong; but, for the present, my dear, let us
talk of other things. Jean will be good to you, I don’t doubt. If I were
not concerned for your mother’s daughter, Isabel, and anxious to see you
free from all those common folk, I would not speak----’

‘She is very kind to me, and she’s the nearest friend I have now,’ said
Isabel; ‘and if she was good enough for my father to marry----’

Miss Catherine shook her head.

‘You are aye your old self,’ she said, ‘trying to provoke me for all the
sorrow in your heart. But we’ll say no more on that subject. I would
tell you the news of the country-side, if I thought you would care; but
if you would not care----’

‘Oh, I do!’ cried Isabel, with a violent, sudden blush. She was ashamed
of herself for caring, and angry to think that the country-side should
be anything to her in her desolation. ‘I was meaning,’ she continued,
timidly, ‘if there’s any news about friends.’

‘Mr. Lothian has been ill, Isabel; that is why he has not been here.’

‘Has he not been here--I did not know,’ said Isabel, with profound and
calm indifference. Miss Catherine gazed at her for a whole minute,
without moving, her eyes fixed with a wonder beyond words on the
inexperienced creature who could thus balk the most artful attempts to
draw her into any path she did not choose herself.

‘My dear,’ she said, rising, ‘you do not know all the love that good man
wastes on you. Would you have been as careless as that if I had spoken
of the lad under his roof? As if the minister was not worth twenty of
him! and you not to see it, you foolish, foolish Isabel!’

‘Miss Catherine,’ said Isabel, rising too, with fine youthful gravity
and superiority, ‘is it right to speak like that to me, at such a time?’

These last words took away Miss Catherine’s breath. She was lost in
amaze at the curious innocent dignity and cunning and utter
unconsciousness of Isabel’s self-dependence. She felt herself rebuked by
the girl who stood so pale before her, who was so resolute and superior
and certain of what she said. Had the circumstances been different, she
would have laughed at the naïve skill with which her attempts were
baffled. But it was not a moment to laugh, as Isabel had said.

‘Well, well; you will not hear anything I have to say,’ she said, ‘but
there may come a time when you will be glad of my counsel. And when that
time comes it shall not be denied you. Come to the House and see me when
you’re able, Isabel, for the sake of the past. You need not be afraid.
I’ll keep silent and give you no advice.’

‘I will always be thankful for your advice,’ cried the unconscious girl,
‘more thankful than I can tell--for who have I to look to now? I would
thank you, on my knees, if ye would always tell me what I ought to do.’

Miss Catherine could not restrain a smile; but Isabel’s earnestness and
good faith shone out of her serious eyes.

‘If you bid me counsel you in the general, and then turn away from every
single thing I say, how can I help you?’ she said, ‘But, my dear, I’ll
not stay now--go out and take some exercise, and do not sit brooding
here. Jean will take care of you, and the fresh air will do you good.’

‘I was thinking to take a turn--on the braes--where it’s quiet,’
faltered Isabel. Perhaps she was afraid to meet Miss Catherine’s eye;
she swerved aside a little so as not to face her, and paused, and then
sought refuge in tears, she could not have told why.

‘Eh, but these bairns are strange creatures,’ Miss Catherine said to
herself as she left the cottage. ‘Me to think she would be too broken
with her grief to mind what she did. But no! for all so young as she is,
as fixed in her ways as if she knew the world from beginning to end like
an A B C; going her own gait and thinking her own thoughts, and how to
have her own way. And not a fortnight yet since my poor Margaret was
laid beneath the sod. These creatures nowadays never know what sorrow
means. They think of themselves when _we_ would have broken our hearts.
And me that was always so fond of that wilful Bell!’

Isabel had but scarce dried her tears, and composed herself as best she
could to her solitary labour once more, when Jean stole in with anxious
looks.

‘My lamb,’ she said, ‘there’s the minister coming up the hill. He’s been
ill, poor man--and white and wan he looks as I never saw him look
before. Will I let him in? It’s better now if you can bear to see him;
and, Isabel, if you’re feared for his speaking, I will cry upon the
bairns and get out the Book, and he’ll give us a word o’ prayer. I dinna
ken what he may think, for he’s newfangled in his ways. But that was aye
the practice on such an occasion, as long as I mind. Will I let him in?’

Isabel turned away with a hasty gesture of pain; but she was humbled and
penitent, and the solitary parlour looked more solitary, more dreadful
than ever to her broken and suffering mind.

‘I do not care who comes,’ she said, with petulance. ‘Let them all come.
When they have once been here, and spied upon us how we bear it, maybe
they will let us be, and come no more.’

‘Oh, Isabel!’ said Jean, ‘it’s no with that thought the minister comes.
You know well what’s in his heart, though he might be your father--and
a’ the parish kens.’

For the first time this suggestion was a kind of comfort to the poor
girl. She had been feeling so ashamed, so wicked, that there was some
balm to her in the thought that all the parish was aware with what
feelings she was regarded by the first man in it, and the esteemed of
all.

‘Let him come,’ she said, sitting down by the window, where she would
have the Loch at least to turn to, away from the reproachful affection
in Mr. Lothian’s eyes. ‘If they would but let me alone!’ she said to
herself; but in her heart--the impatient, petulant, struggling heart,
desired anything rather than to be left alone.

Mr. Lothian came in, looking, as Jean had said, white and wan, yet full
of a hushed fever of agitation, with flushes of colour crossing his
cheek, as he came up to her, and took into his her half-reluctant hands.
Then Nature suddenly, as with a stroke, quenched out all the curiosity
that had been in Isabel’s heart. The sight of him woke again the tears
in their fountains. She could say nothing to him, but only weep
helplessly with her head bowed down, almost choked by the convulsive sob
which climbed into her throat. His heart was so melted with love and
pity that he laid his hand on her head with half-paternal tenderness.

‘Poor child! poor child!’ he said, bending over her, holding the soft
small hand which she no longer thought of withdrawing from him. The
sight of her tears was almost more than he could bear.

He was still standing by her when she came to herself, and the first
thing that roused Isabel was the instinctive homely politeness which
her humble breeding had taught her. As soon as her eyes were so clear of
tears that she could see, she would have risen to find a seat for him.

‘Sit still, Isabel,’ he said, ‘I have not come to weary you to-day; I
shall not stay. Only one moment, my dear, to tell you--but what can I
tell you? you know everything I would say.’

Isabel could make no reply; but somehow on the very borders of that
outbreak of her sorrow there came to her the sense that her curiosity
was satisfied. The man’s voice, though he was so old, like her father,
was eloquent and musical with love.

‘I could not come to you sooner,’ he said, ‘and I have not come now to
trouble you with words. It is not the time to speak of what one might
wish, or what one might dream. But, my dear, I want you not to forget
that there is one heart not far off full of love for you. Not a
word--not a word. Isabel, I am asking nothing, my dear. I am going away
this minute, as soon as I’ve said what I have to say. Kindness you’ll
have in plenty--but love is rare. I thought I would just come and tell
you of mine.’

‘Oh, Mr. Lothian, I do not deserve it!’ sobbed poor Isabel.

‘And that there is not a trouble you have, nor a tear you shed, but I
would fain bear it for you,’ said the minister; ‘and my thoughts never
leave you in your sorrow night or day; that is all. My dear, when you
think, you’ll understand. It is not to bribe you to give me anything
back--it is but to be a comfort to you.’

‘I do not deserve it,’ Isabel repeated, not knowing what she said.

And then the good man sighed, and laid his hand once more tenderly,
reverently, upon her drooping head.

‘I might be your father,’ he said; ‘but I love you. And farewell for
this time, my dear. That was all I had to say.’

The next moment it was as a dream to Isabel that he had been there. She
cast a timid look round her, and he was gone, and the very sound of his
footsteps had already died away from the flags at the door.




CHAPTER XVII


It was some days after this before Isabel actually ventured out upon the
braes. One afternoon, standing in the garden, seeing nobody near, a
forlorn impulse seized her to visit the birch tree on the braes, which
had been so often their trysting-place. Looking up and looking down,
the white roads seem to her to extend for miles on every side, without a
single passenger upon them. Nobody, then, could criticise or blame her
for that sick movement of her heart. Isabel went in softly, feeling her
circumstances now too solemn to permit her to run out with a shawl round
her as she had once done--and put on her bonnet. And then, with a thrill
of excitement, took her way up the hill. Either its steepness or some
strange expectation took away her breath. The braes were changed from
what they had so lately been. The ferns were crumpled up by the first
touch of frost, and tinged yellow. The heather bells were all dry and
dead, with the colour and life gone out of them, like so many
_immortelles_. And the turf was wet under Isabel’s feet. The great
heather bushes caught her dress, and sprinkled her with showers of
rain-drops. She was cold, and her heart sunk within her. Was it maidenly
to come and look for him here when he did not seek her? Was it becoming
her bereavement to be able now to think of him, to remember anything
about the birch, and all the foolish words that had been said under it?
She put her arm softly, almost with a sense of guilt, round its silvery
stem. There were only young trees on the braes, and this little lady of
the woods with its long locks waving, and its graceful, slender stem,
was like Isabel. He had said so, moved by the sentiment which sometimes
makes the dullest mind poetic. She thought of that as she put her arm
round it, and leaned her cheek against the silvery bark. Moved by her
touch, the branches dropped a little shower of rain over her. Were they
tears? She wept, too, leaning upon her woodland likeness.

‘It is liker me now--far liker me now--for I’m alone! alone!’ said
Isabel; and with a pang of exquisite anguish could not tell which she
was mourning for--her dead Margaret or her lost love.

But tears will not flow continually, however full the heart may be. They
had all dried out of her eyes after a few minutes, and she stood still
leaning against the tree, gazing out once more upon that familiar
landscape, and wondering if she was to see nothing for ever and ever but
the still loch and the roads that stretched away so long and wistful up
to the sky on one side, and away to the Clyde on the other, without a
living creature upon them to break the stillness--when she heard behind
her a rustle as of someone coming. She dared not turn her head to see
whom it was, but the sound made her heart thrill and beat with a wild
excitement she could not control.

Then, suddenly, an arm was put round her, and a voice sounded in her
ear. She had known it must be so. A flood of satisfaction came into her
heart. ‘I thought I was never to see him more!’ she said to herself
without turning her face to him. But he had come at last, and her mind
for the moment required no more.

‘It was a long time before I could make sure that this black figure in a
bonnet was you,’ he said, as if they had parted an hour before; ‘I have
been gazing and wondering for five minutes who it could be. I ought to
have thought of the change of dress.’

Was this all he had to say to her after ‘what had happened?’ Isabel’s
heart shrank, with a sense of sudden chill, within her breast.

‘I came out because my heart was sore,’ she faltered. ‘I cannot tell
why; I thought I would like to see it again.’

‘Not to see me?’ said Stapylton, coming round where he could see her
face.

‘If you had cared for that you might have come before,’ said Isabel,
with a little movement of displeasure. How different it was from the
conversation she had dreamed of!--the soft words, the tender pity, the
assurances of his love.

‘Yes, among all those women that are constantly about you,’ he said,
‘your stepmother, and that old witch Miss Catherine--to see you coddled
and kissed and mumbled over! No, Isabel; if I could have had you all to
myself, as I have now----’

‘And you never thought. Maybe she wants me sitting there her lane? Oh,
Horace! I would not have studied my own pleasure if you had been in
trouble.’

‘Well, never mind,’ he said. ‘Of course I am not so good as you are; if
I were to show myself so gentle, and patient, and unselfish, it would be
taking your _rôle_. But we must not quarrel now we have met. You are
pale, my darling. They have been shutting you up indoors and preaching
you to death.’

‘Do you think there is nothing else to make me pale?’ said Isabel, moved
once more by a pang of disappointment.

‘Don’t let us speak of that. Why should we dwell on such gloomy
subjects?’ said Stapylton. ‘Change of thought is as necessary as change
of scene; and, besides, I have other things to tell you of. It is weeks
now since I have been able to get near you. Don’t let us be unkind and
miserable now that we have met at last.’

Isabel had no answer to make. She was stupified by his tone; and yet how
could she, loving him as she did, tell herself that he was heartless?
Her startled soul paused and stood still for a moment, and then she
said to herself that this must be the way folk thought in England, the
custom of the bigger, greater world. No doubt it was only in an
out-of-the-way corner like Loch Diarmid that there was time to dwell
upon personal grief. She dried her eyes hastily with a furtive hand, and
half-upbraided herself with self-indulgence. But she could not reply.

‘I am not very cheerful, either,’ he said. ‘I want you to comfort me,
Isabel. I have heard from home since I saw you last, and I have no
further excuse to make. I fear I shall have to go away.’

‘To go away!’ cried Isabel, feeling as if the sky had suddenly darkened,
and all comfort had gone out of the earth.

‘It is very hard upon me,’ he said, ‘just when I might have had you a
little more to myself. But I am not my own master, and the folks at home
must be obeyed.’

What could she answer? So much in need of pity, and comfort, and
soothing, as she was, so unprepared to encounter any new blow! She gave
a little gasp as for breath, leaning again upon the birch-tree. And once
more the chill tears from its long drooping branches came down upon them
like a shower. Stapylton sprung aside with a little impatience.

‘Hallo!’ he said; ‘mind what you’re about!’ And then, after a pause,
‘Well, it appears you have nothing to say!’

‘What can I say?’ said poor Isabel, shivering with agitation and pain.
‘If you must go, Mr. Stapylton, it cannot matter what I think or what I
say.’

‘I knew it would be like that,’ he cried; ‘I knew you would take it as
an offence. But, Isabel, look here; I have been dangling after you for
more than a year. You are quite willing I should hang about and wait for
you here; and perhaps you would let me come down to the cottage and see
you, for anything I can tell, now. But as that is all the satisfaction I
have ever got, or am likely to get----’

‘What satisfaction would you have?’ said Isabel, under her breath.

‘What satisfaction would I have? that is a charming question to put to
me after all that has passed between us. Just look here, Isabel; if it
had not been for your ridiculous scruples, think what a different
position I should have been in. I’d have written home a penitent letter,
saying I was very sorry, and all that, and that I was married, and all
about it. There would have been a flare-up, of course; but what could
they have done? Whereas, now, what can a fellow say? I cannot moon on
here for another six months, or another year, or perhaps more than that.
Neither my people, nor anybody’s people, would listen to it for a
moment. When I speak plainly you are affected; and yet it is all your
own fault.’

‘If I look like that to _him_, what must I look to other folk?’ Isabel
said to herself. Her pride was not roused, but broken down. Even the
thought of answering him was absent from her mind. She had to receive
the expression of his will; but what could she reply to it? She had
nothing to say.

‘So,’ he continued, after a pause. ‘I am to be left to make the best of
it, I suppose. You have no answer to give me even now.’

‘You have asked me no question, Mr. Stapylton,’ said Isabel, faintly.
‘You have but found fault with me. It was never my meaning to keep you
hanging on, as you say. What you asked me was impossible--then; and if I
am aye to be reproached and blamed for what happens, maybe it is best
that it should always be impossible. I would not be the one to keep you
back--from your own folk--or waste your time--or----’

‘What more?’ said her lover, irritated. ‘Say something more! say you’ve
been making game of me all the time. I can believe it. Perhaps that
canting hypocrite at Ardnamore would please you better. I hear he was in
the cottage not long ago; or the minister----’

Isabel’s heart swelled as if it would burst. She raised her drooping
head with what remnants of pride she had left in the utter overthrow of
all her strength.

‘I cannot tell,’ she said, with a gasp, ‘what right any man has to say
such things to me.’ And she disengaged herself from the birch-tree which
had been her prop and support--but softly still, poor child, not to
throw upon him the rain with which it was laden--and made a step or two
away. Then she paused, finding it hard work to stand alone, and harder
work still to restrain the convulsive sobbing which struggled in her
breast. ‘If we are to part,’ she said, softly, taking breath between the
words, ‘you know best--I am not saying a word; but if we are to part,
may not we part friends at least?’

And with a woeful smile she put out her hand to him. She was too weak
for pride; she seemed to herself to be dying, too, like Margaret, and
dying folk should be kind, she said in her heart. He was but a man, and
perhaps knew no better; and she was too much crushed and wounded to be
angry. The only anxious desire she had was to be done with this, and to
get home to the fire, to feel some sensation of warmth in her once more;
and then die.

‘I think you want to drive me mad,’ he said; and then he seized the
proffered hand with sudden haste, and drew her almost roughly to him.
‘This is a woman’s way of doing things, I suppose,’ he said, ‘but not
mine--crying; you seem to me to do nothing but cry. Look here, once for
all, Isabel, you had a reason before, but you have none now. Will you
come with me now?’

‘Where?’ she said, in a whisper, not having breath enough or heart
enough either for resistance or utterance.

‘Where? what does it matter where? It might be here for anything I care;
but all this ridiculous set would object, and there would be time lost,
and the news would be sent home. Come with me now--come to-morrow. What
does it matter? You have no invalid to keep you back. What! offended
again? How is a plain man to understand all your fancies? If you like to
be gloomy and cry I can’t help it, Isabel; but what is the good of
dwelling on the past? You did all you could be expected to do, and more.
Surely you may think of yourself now.’

‘It is you that does not understand,’ said Isabel, with a sudden
movement of indignation, withdrawing from him. ‘What can I say that will
make you understand?’

‘I don’t want to understand!’ he cried. ‘Come, Isabel, don’t keep me in
pain. If you’ll meet me here to-morrow I’ll arrange everything to-night.
We’ll go to Kilcranion and get the steamer there, and reach either
Glasgow or Edinburgh in the evening. Isabel! no, you shan’t go away! You
can leave a note for your stepmother. Surely, I am more to you than she
is. You will make me happy, and make everything possible. It is best to
write and tell them after it is done. We’ll go and see everything
together; and you never were out of your parish before. Isabel, it will
bring back the roses to your cheeks again.’

He held her hand, though she struggled away from him, and bent forward
gazing into her face. Isabel’s pale cheeks grew crimson with a violent
blush; all at once life and force and strength seemed to pour back into
her heart with this wild temptation which shook her to the very depth of
her being. The stream had sunk so low that this sudden tide swelled all
her veins to bursting, and brought noises to her ears, the sound of
awakening, confused hum and buzz of every pulse, of her breathing and
her heart. Escape out of this grey atmosphere into the ideal light--out
of this chill into the warmth of love--out of this stillness into
movement and music and sunshine, and all the stir of common life. But
again with equal suddenness a sense of the chill, the grey landscape,
the falling night, the heavy evening dew came back to her, quenching
out the light and stilling the sounds. She uttered a heavy sigh, she
clasped her hands together as if relinquishing all outside aid. ‘And
Margaret not three weeks in her grave!’ That was all she could find to
say.

‘What has that to do with it?’ said Stapylton, ‘you sacrificed yourself
to her when she was living--and are you to make no use of your freedom
now she is dead? _She_ can’t feel it _now_: what will it matter to her
whether you are here or with me? You are free now; go where you like, it
can’t affect her any more.’

He had taken her hand again, but she wrung it out of his almost with
violence; a dull flush came over her of nervous passion. ‘You neither
understand her nor me,’ she said, with a pang in her heart. ‘Oh, how
dare you speak--how dare you speak?’ and in her anger she stamped her
foot upon the yielding turf.

‘Now I’ll tell you what, Isabel,’ he said, ‘I am not to be trifled with
any more. It must be made an end of one way or another. The steamer
leaves Kilcranion at three----’

‘It shall be made an end of,’ cried Isabel, ‘when you can speak to me
like that in my trouble--when you can speak of _her_ like that--oh, say
no more! It shows me you do not know what love means--not what it means.
I bade you farewell, and you would not take it--but now I say, Go, Mr.
Stapylton, go! You have said enough--oh, too much, too much! I cannot
bear it. Free! and nothing to her! O man, man, have ye a heart within
ye? and can you think I would be glad of that?’

‘I can’t speak your cant,’ cried Stapylton. ‘Isabel! this is the last
attempt I will ever make----’

He followed her as he spoke, for she had turned from him, making her way
towards the highroad. For a few minutes he went on with her, keeping
close by her side, speaking rapidly.

‘This is the last time I will speak. The steamer leaves Kilcranion at
three; I will be here waiting for you at two o’clock. I will take every
precaution, and make every arrangement. Think it over, Isabel, you never
made such an important decision. If you do not come to me at two
to-morrow we may never meet more in our lives.’

She stopped and stood gazing at him as he came to this conclusion. For
his part he had grown pale and breathless with excitement. He looked at
her menacingly from beneath his lowering brows. ‘Never in our lives if
not to-morrow!’ he repeated, looking intently in her eyes as if to look
her down.

But Isabel was roused, too; she met his eyes without flinching, though
every particle of colour had left her face.

‘You threaten me!’ she said, with unconscious scorn. ‘If it was me, I
would go to the end of the earth for one I loved--not frown at her, and
break her heart to do a thing that’s impossible. Oh, how could you ask
me to do it? It will have to be never--never! if that is your last
word----’

And even then poor Isabel’s maidenly soul was so faithful, so incapable
of believing he could mean the cruel things he said, that her eyes grew
wistful and woeful looking at him, for one final moment appealing still.

‘I will wait for you all the same,’ he said, with a half-laugh. ‘When
you think it all over, you’ll change your mind. At two o’clock I will be
here.’

For yet one more moment they stood confronting each other; he with a
smile of affected calmness; she with a gaze that gradually clouded into
despair. Then she turned with a little wave of her hand, and left him.
He did not attempt to follow. He stood on the same spot watching her as
she wound her way through the heather. Once or twice he moved a step in
the same direction as if to go after her, but immediately stopped
himself.

‘If I give in now all’s lost,’ he said to himself, trying to force his
lips into a cheerless whistle. ‘She’ll have thought better of it before
to-morrow,’ he said unconsciously aloud. After all, a sister is only a
sister, a sort of secondary relationship in life. What girl (he thought)
would lose a husband for the sake of a dead woman who could interfere
with her comfort no more? ‘She’ll think better of it,’ he repeated to
himself in his heart.




CHAPTER XVIII


Isabel went softly down the hill in a concentrated calm, such as only
excitement knows. There was a vague, indescribable force in her; a flush
of hysterical strength, an exaltation of feeling and bearing and step.
Jamie had been sent out by his mother to look for her, and met her some
hundred yards from the cottage, stopped short, amazed by her looks, ‘Oh!
Isabel, what is it?’ he cried; but Isabel swept past him unaware of his
presence. She went in through the parlour to the innermost retirement of
her own room, and there sat down to think; but she was not capable of
thought. She sat down with her bonnet and shawl still on by the side of
the bed on which her sister had lain in the last silence of death, and
leaned her head against the chill pillow to still and calm herself.

It was thus that Jean found her half an hour later, when, having heard
Jamie’s report of Isabel’s return, she went to seek her wayward charge.
Jean’s first glance informed her that the crape on her stepdaughter’s
dress was limp, and spoiled with the damp, and that her feet were wet.

‘Oh! Isabel, my bonnie woman, it’s no good for you. You’ve been in the
kirkyard again,’ cried Jean putting her apron to her eyes. She could
make nothing of the cry, ‘Oh! no, no, not there,’ that came from
Isabel’s white lips. Where could she have been but at the grave? It was
perhaps a little hard that she should deny it, as if Jean could not
enter into her feelings; but no doubt it was natural. Jean took the
forlorn creature into her motherly arms.

‘Come ben to the fire, my lamb,’ she said, ‘your crape’s damp and a’
ruined, and your feet are as wet as the moss itself. I canna have ye ill
to break my heart. My darlin’, put off your bonnet and come ben to the
fire. I’ll change your feet and make ye a cup of tea. Oh, Isabel! it’s
an awfu’ loss and an awfu’ trial--but ye maun mind, it’s God’s will and
canna be wrong.’

Isabel turned away from her with a cry of despair, which Jean
misunderstanding set down but to the renewed vehemence of grief
rekindled to its fullest by the melancholy visit which she supposed her
stepdaughter to have just paid. When she got her at last into her own
elbow-chair by the kitchen fire, and knelt before her chafing the girl’s
little white feet in her rough but kindly hands, ‘Isabel, my bonnie
woman, you must promise me no to go again,’ she said, surrounding her
with kindly ministrations.

‘Oh, let me be!’ sobbed Isabel, ‘let me be;’ and sighing, Jean left her
in her own especial sanctuary, by the warm light of the kitchen fire.
Unawares her eyes closed, her hands, which had been strained together
with a painful pressure, unclasped, her head fell softly back upon the
blue and white covering of the high-backed chair. Jean was so moved by
the sight when she returned into the kitchen, coming and going at her
work, that she turned even little Mary, just coming home from school,
out of the darkling place. ‘Can ye no see that Isabel’s sleeping?’ she
said sharply to her own flesh and blood.

‘But, oh, what makes her sleep in the day?’ said Mary, following into
the parlour with a frightened face, ‘Is she to die too like Margaret?’
and big tears sprang to the child’s eyes.

‘The Lord forbid!’ said Jean, ‘but, whisht now, and be as quiet as a
mouse--she’s worn, and wearied, and grieved at her heart. When ane ‘s in
sair trouble sleep is sweet.’

‘I wonder if she ay dreams of Margaret like me,’ said little Mary. ‘Eh,
mother, Margaret comes and stands by my bed every night!’

‘Oh, bairn, whisht, and no break my heart!’ cried Jean, uneasily. ‘Ye
were ay the one for dreams.’

‘But I’m no feared,’ said little Mary, ‘whiles she speaks, but I never
can mind what she says. It’s just the same to me as if she was living.
Then I used to see her a’ day, and now I see her a’ night--and she has
ay light round like an angel out of Heaven.’

‘Oh, whisht, with your dreams!’ cried the mother with a tone of anger,
which belied the sudden tremor in her heart. ‘Have ye nae lessons to
learn like Jamie? He’s away on the braes, the poor callant! with his
book.’

‘He’s making a whistle out of a rowan-tree branch,’ said Mary; ‘I cried
upon him as I passed, but he wouldna come in, and he’ll cut his fingers,
for it’s getting dark.’

‘Eh me, he’s an awfu’ laddie!’ said poor Jean, rushing to the door. What
with her precocious daughter, and her backward son, and Isabel whose
heart it was so hard to keep, she had, as she herself expressed it, ‘a
bonnie handful.’ But fortunately the one anxiety kept the other in
check, and uneasiness about the cutting of Jamie’s fingers dulled in her
mind the painful impression of Mary’s dreams; and then night fell, and
the children came in, and Isabel awoke to a sense of warmth and comfort.
She did not even propose to retire into her dignity in the parlour, but
stayed in the elbow-chair, and even smiled as she had scarcely done
before. She was glad to take refuge among them--glad to avoid the
inevitable encounter with her own thoughts; and indeed her mind had
taken refuge in a kind of insensibility. She had felt so much that for
the moment she could feel no more.

Thus it was that Isabel did not return to the events of the afternoon
during the whole course of the night. The emotions that had been so
strong in her seemed to have been somehow lulled to sleep. She made an
ineffectual attempt to recall them when she went to her own room, but
fatigue and sleep got the better of her. A curious sense of escape came
over her. She had expected to be rent asunder with indignation, and that
madness which devours the mind when we are wroth with those we love. A
hundred terrible questions had seemed on the eve of sweeping down upon
her like so many birds of prey to be resolved and settled in a moment.
And yet nothing of the kind had happened: instead, a soft insensibility
had crept over her mind. She was too weary for anything; and slept, like
a tired child, quieted and composed and wrapped in physical warmth and
consolation.

These were her feelings when she fell asleep. But Isabel awoke, in the
middle of the night, as she thought, in the deep darkness and stillness,
broad awake in a second, without any twilight interval between the deep
blank of repose and the tremendous struggle of existence.

She turned from side to side in her weary bed, sometimes hoping that out
of the gloom there might reveal itself a sudden figure, all blazing with
awful brightness, to show her what was needful to be done--counting the
steadfast, unbroken, terrible tickings of the clock, feeling the
darkness affect her, a thing which weighed down her eyes and oppressed
her soul. When the first shade of grey trembled into the dusk, it was to
Isabel as a messenger from Heaven. Her heart bounded up with a sense of
relief; and as the dawn grew, revealing in a mist the whitening
hill-side, and the reflections in the Loch, she found it possible to
sleep again and forget her troubles. She fell into a heavy slumber,
which still lasted when Jean came softly into the room to rouse her.

‘I dinna like thae long sleeps,’ Jean said to herself, with a sudden
pang: ‘Eh, if she should gang too, like Margret!’ and stood by the
bedside reluctant to awake her, gazing at the sleeper’s pale face, at
the unconscious knitting of her brows, and tremulous movements of her
hand. She grew more and more anxious as the morning advanced, and
Isabel, trained in the habit of early rising, never woke. The good woman
stole repeatedly to her stepdaughter’s bedside, laying her hand softly
on Isabel’s forehead, and touching the white arm which lay on the
coverlet to discover whether she was feverish. When she opened her eyes
at last, Jean was gazing at her with an anxiety which she did her best
to dissimulate as soon as she perceived that Isabel was awake.

‘I thought you were never to wake mair,’ she said, with attempted
playfulness. ‘Lazy thing! It’s ten o’clock in the day, and half the work
of the house done. But, now you’re so late, bide a wee longer, and I’ll
bring you your tea.’

‘But I am quite well,’ said Isabel, raising herself with a little start.

‘I canna think it, or you wouldna sleep like that,’ said Jean. ‘You,
that were never lazy in the morning. You’ve gotten cauld on the braes.’

Jean did not know what meaning there could be in her words which brought
that cloud on her stepdaughter’s face. She looked at her very
anxiously, but could make nothing of it.

‘I shouldna have said a word of where ye were,’ she exclaimed, with
sudden compunction. ‘It’s me that’s a thoughtless body, never minding.
But we must submit to God’s will, my bonnie woman; and I’ll go, and
bring ye your tea.’

‘This will never do,’ Jean said to herself, as she left the room. It
will never do. She must have some change. I’ll go and speak to Miss
Catherine about it this very day.’ And when she went back, with the tea
on a little tray, the suggestion framed itself into speech. ‘What would
ye say to going to Edinburgh, and seeing a’ the sights? But--eh! bless
me, is the lassie daft?’ cried Jean, thunderstruck by the effect of her
words.

‘I will not listen to you,’ said Isabel, with sudden passion. ‘Never! Go
to Edinburgh! How dare ye put such things in my head? Go away, and play
myself, and be happy--and my Margaret not three weeks in her grave!’

‘My bonnie lamb!’ said Jean, with streaming eyes. ‘To see you happy--or
if no happy, a wee cheerful--taking some good of your life--Margret
would have given half hers. Do you think she’s mair selfish, mair hard,
no so thoughtful now?’

Isabel could but gasp at her with startled, wondering eyes. Was Jean,
too, pleading for him? Was she taking his part consciously or
unconsciously? She put away the food her stepmother had brought her,
with nervous, trembling hands.

‘I cannot lie here,’ she said. ‘I am quite well. Let me get up, and then
I will know what to do.’

‘Lie still, my dear,’ said Jean, anxiously. ‘You’ve been waking through
the night, and greetin’ sore; and you’ve got cauld on the wet grass. Lie
still this day, and rest.’

‘But I cannot rest,’ said Isabel. ‘I cannot breathe. My heart is like as
if it were bound with an iron band. I want to rise, and to get the air.’

‘Nae air the day except the air from the window,’ said Jean. ‘I can be
positive, too. Na, na; I have the charge of you, and decline’s in the
family. You shanna cross the door this day.’

Isabel fell back on her pillow with the strangest sense of relief. She,
who had never yielded to her stepmother in her life, felt a certain
consolation in this exercise of authority.

‘It is not as if it was my own doing,’ she thought in herself, and kept
still, satisfied for the moment with her relief from all responsibility.
The manner in which she subsided into sudden listlessness and quiet
frightened Jean still more. Had it been anyone else, she might have
accepted it as the result of natural weakness or weariness, but nothing
of the kind had ever been seen before in wilful Isabel. Nor did it last
long. When Jean returned, an hour later, her charge was again struggling
with excitement.

‘I am going to get up,’ she said, with two brilliant spots of colour on
her cheeks. ‘I feel as if I were in my grave here. I must get out to the
fresh air!’

Jean’s answer was to draw away the curtain from the window. Then Isabel
saw, looking out on the hill-side, the falling of the noiseless rain. It
was no white violent blast with actual colour and solidity, but the fine
impalpable dropping which penetrates through every covering, and which
the experienced West Highlander looks at with hopeless eyes. ‘To gan out
into that wet would be as much as your life is worth,’ said Jean,
solemnly. ‘The braes are nae better than a shaking moss, and the roads
are running like burns. It’s an awfu’ saft day. Ye may get up and sit by
the fire, but across the door ye’ll no go, or else you’ll quarrel with
me.’

This time it was with a kind of despair that Isabel listened. He would
never think of it--he could not expect her, nor would he go himself on
such a day. His departure would be put off, and with it the crisis, and
time would be left to think. A little time to think, even an hour more
she felt would be something gained. She had another moment of
tranquility, gazing out from where she lay through the low window, upon
the melancholy braes.

After a temporary lull, however, her fever returned. This time she rose
and dressed herself hastily, putting on, in a half-dream, not her new
‘mourning,’ with the crape on it, but a thick winter dress, black enough
to indicate any depths of sorrow. Always like a walker in a dream--that
was the only explanation she could have given of her own feelings.
Clothed for her journey, yet without any intention of taking the
journey, she wandered drearily about her sister’s room. One o’clock,
struck by the solemn eight-day clock, which gave a kind of mechanical
soul to the house, knelled upon Isabel’s ear, as she held her white
trembling hands over the fire. It shook her like a convulsion of nature.
But one hour more--and all to be decided in that hour--and her mind no
nearer the solution, scarcely so near as last night.

‘You’re looking real weakly, my dear,’ said Jean; ‘shaking like a leaf.
I’m no sure you should have risen out of your bed. Take this shawl round
you, and I’ll give you some broth to warm you. You’ve eaten nothing the
whole day.’

‘I could not eat!’ said Isabel, wrapping round her with a shiver the
soft warm shawl. Tick, tick, tick! Would nothing arrest these inexorable
moments? As they went on her thoughts seemed to rise round her like a
whirlwind sweeping about and about her bewildered soul; every beat
brought nearer to her the last moment when her fate should still be in
her own power. And yet she was like one paralysed, and could not move.
The minutes pressed and trod upon each other’s heels, and yet were so
slow in their confused procession, that it might have been an age
instead of an hour. At last, while Isabel sat striving to break the
spell which bound her, the door flew open and then closed violently
after Jamie rushing in wet and muddy from school.

‘It’s no raining now!’ cried the boy as he dashed forward to the side of
the fire. Isabel started as if a shot had struck her. Just then the
clock gave its little whirr of warning that it was about to strike the
hour. She sprang up to her feet with a sudden cry--then sank down
again--her pale head falling back against the chair, her hands falling
listless on its arms. Jean, rushing to her, believed for the first
moment that Isabel was dead. She was as one dead, her eyes half-closed
and ghastly; her colour completely gone; her very lips deserted of all
colour. The struggle had been too much for her. She lay insensible in a
dead faint before her stepmother’s affrighted eyes.




CHAPTER XIX


Stapylton sought the trysting-place on the hill on the decisive day with
all the excitement natural to the crisis, but with little fear of the
result. He had taken none of the precautions of which he had spoken to
Isabel. What need was there of precautions? she would wear a veil of
course, and a cloak. The road to Kilcranion was little frequented,
especially on such a day; and by the time Kilcranion was reached, they
would be, to some extent, among strangers, not liable to recognition at
every step as here. He made up for himself a small bag of necessaries,
put the money he had just received to carry him home in his pocket,
buttoned his greatcoat, and took his way through the drizzling rain to
the hill-side.

He had loitered there for about half an hour watching for traces of
Isabel’s approach, and gradually beginning to be angry, when the rain
suddenly stopped, and the sky cleared ever so little. That was so far
good. He put down his bag, and lighted a cigar to comfort himself as he
waited. Below where he stood, just within sight, the thatched roof of
the Glebe Cottage rose like some natural growth out of the heather. No
doubt she must have waited for this moment; though why she should have
waited, keeping him in the rain, he could not imagine. However it was a
pardonable sin if she came now. This thought went through his mind just
at the moment when Isabel, rising to go to him, fell back and fainted in
her chair. He paced up and down the wet turf, and smoked his cigar, and
looked for her, calculating in his own mind how long the weather would
‘keep up,’ and whether there might be time to reach Kilcranion before it
came on to rain again. Another half-hour, it might be, was spent in
these speculations; and then he took out his watch suddenly, and woke to
the consciousness that he had been waiting for an hour on the moor, that
the steamer must be gone from Kilcranion, and that the way of escape
unobserved was closed to them for that night.

It would be difficult to describe the rage which rose in a moment in his
mind. She, whom he thought so entirely subject to him, whom he had felt
to be delivered over to him bound hand and foot when she was deprived of
her sister--had Isabel rebelled against his influence? Had she cast him
off? It did not seem possible. He would--but was that Isabel? It seemed
to him he could hear sounds from the cottage; the noise of doors opening
and shutting--a babble of tongues. Could they be detaining her by force?
But then no one in the world had any right to detain her--she was
absolutely free. Still there was some agitation about the Glebe. He
snatched up his bag, not without a private imprecation upon Isabel for
making him thus ridiculous, that he should have to drag it about from
one place to another; and then he turned rapidly down the hill. Someone
came out of the cottage as he got full in sight of it--someone whom he
easily divined to be Mr. Lothian. ‘Confound him!’ said the young fellow;
what was he doing there just at the moment when Stapylton’s fate was
being decided? Could she have consulted him? Was it through the
minister’s plotting that his purpose had thus been brought to nothing?
The young man hurried down, carrying in his hand, and cursing the
troublesome bag, which but for her---- it was a small matter, but it
exasperated him more than a greater. He had half a mind to fling it at
the cottage door, and order Jamie to carry it for him for sixpence, by
way of driving the stepmother out of her senses. But surely there was
something strange going on at the Glebe. Jenny Spence had just come out
with another woman, and stood in audible colloquy with her at the door.
‘You’ll tell the doctor she’s come to hersel,’ said Jenny. ‘It lasted an
hour, Jean thinks. But time looks awfu’ long when folk are feared, and
maybe it wasna an hour. She’s come to hersel, and very quiet, and
there’s nae such haste as we thought. But for a’ that, tell him he’s to
come on here as soon as he can.’

‘And will I say what was the cause?’ said the messenger, while Stapylton
listened eagerly.

‘He’s mair likely to tell us,’ said the other; ‘the first thing she
asked was, What o’clock was it? And when she heard gave an awfu’ sigh,
and syne lay as quiet as a wean--though what the clock had to do with it
Gude kens. I hope it’s no her head; that would be worse of a’.’

‘But she’s ay been real healthy and strong. A body in trouble may faint,
and yet no be that ill after a’.’

‘But ye see decline’s in the family,’ said Jenny Spence, and then they
parted, the one returning to the house, the other speeding on her
mission. The bag grew less oppressive in Stapylton’s hands. His clouded
brow cleared a little. After all, she had not meant to leave him in the
lurch. If she was ill that was a different matter. After a pause he went
and knocked at the door, and asked how Miss Diarmid was?

‘If you’re meaning Isabel, she’s no that weel,’ said Jenny Spence; ‘she
was out yesterday in the damp, and she’s gotten a cauld.’ This was all
the information she would condescend upon to a stranger and a ‘young
lad.’

‘But what did I hear you say about a faint?’ said Stapylton eagerly.

‘Lord!’ said Jenny, who, like most of the villagers, disliked the
Englishman, ‘how can I tell what ye might hear me say? I say plenty
whiles that I canna mind myself; but Isabel’s gotten the cauld. It’s
natural at this time of the year.’

‘Cold? and nothing more?’ asked the young man.

‘Ane can never tell--it might turn into an influenza,’ said Jenny; ‘but
that’s a’ the noo, for a’ that I can see.’

And then she closed the door upon him, with a certain malicious
satisfaction. Stapylton was no favourite in the parish; perhaps because
of a sneer which was always lurking behind the few civilities which he
had ever been known to offer. Jenny had no confidence either in his
friendship or his love.

‘Yon’s the lad that would beguile a young lass, but be dour as iron and
steel to his wife as soon as she had married him. I hope there’s
naething amiss between him and Isabel,’ she said to Jean, when she
described this visit; and Jean felt a little thrill go through her, as
if this new event threw light on something, though she could scarcely
tell what.

‘Do you think our Isabel would be thinking of any such nonsense at such
a time!’ she said, indignantly. But still a sensation as of some
discovery darted through her own heart.

Stapylton, however, shut out as he thus was from all approach to Isabel,
was not to be so easily put off. He hastened down the road at his
quickest pace, determined to find out, at least, from the minister what
had happened. Mr. Lothian was standing at the door of the doctor’s house
when the young man made up to him.

‘Is it you, Stapylton?’ he said, with an evident struggle to be
friendly. ‘It has been a dreadful day.’

‘Not cheerful,’ said the young man; ‘but only, after all, “a wee saft,”
as you say in these parts. You have not been consulting the doctor, I
hope, for yourself?’

‘No,’ said Mr. Lothian, fixing his eyes upon his interrogator, and
adding nothing to the syllable. Stapylton’s spirit of natural rivalry
woke up at once.

‘I saw a messenger for the doctor coming from the Glebe,’ he said. ‘I
hope I might be mistaken--or if there is anyone ill there, that it is
only one of the children. Children are always ill.’

‘It is not one of the children,’ said Mr. Lothian. ‘It is--Isabel.’ He
uttered the name with a sigh. He was so anxious, that he was glad to
speak, even to Stapylton, of the subject that lay nearest his heart.

‘What is the matter?’ said the young man, himself feeling somewhat
breathless.

‘She fainted to-day,’ said the minister, ‘without any reason, so far as
we know. She had been out yesterday, at her sister’s grave, and I fear
she caught cold; but a fainting fit shows a state of weakness which--I
cannot but be alarmed at it,’ he added, hurriedly, with a faltering
voice.

‘So she said she had been at her sister’s grave!’--Stapylton thought
within himself. He liked her all the better for having lied to keep
their meeting secret. He had not thought she had so much spirit. And
after all it would have been a wretched day for a journey. To-morrow
would still leave time enough. He must send her a note somehow, to say
so; and, well or ill, she must pluck up her forces and do it at last. He
looked at the glass as he went to his room, and found that it was
rising; and already it had ceased to rain. Dry clothes and a fine day
would make all the difference. And Isabel, who could no longer assume
any superiority over him--who had been as sly about it as any ordinary
girl--would have given herself to him by that time, and be altogether in
his power. The young man whistled in sheer lightheartedness as he
changed his dress. After this she could never mount her high horse, and
show her superior sentiments, as of yore. The first thing he did when
his toilet was accomplished was to write her a note. It was the first
communication of the kind which had ever passed between them, but the
fact did not excite him as it does most young lovers. Poor Mr. Lothian,
on the eminence of his fifty years, would have written to Isabel with
very different feelings; but Stapylton took it calmly, not being of an
imaginative turn. His letter was as follows:--

     ‘DEAREST ISABEL,--I was in an awful state of mind when I found you
     did not turn up to-day at the usual spot. I felt furious I can
     assure you, and called you a jilt and a dozen other names. But I
     hear you’ve been ill, and I forgive you, my darling. Of course it
     never would have answered to set out in the rain on such a
     frightful day if you were ill. I got soaked to the skin waiting for
     you, which I hope you will be sorry to hear. But, Isabel, remember
     to-morrow is the last day. Go I must to-morrow. If you can’t pick
     yourself up and get well, and join me at the same place and the
     same hour, I shall go mad, I think, for I must go. My people are
     writing letters upon letters. There’s one waiting for me now, but I
     have not opened it, for they’re all pretty much the same thing over
     again. They’ve written to Mr. Lothian, and to Smeaton at the farm,
     for information as to what detains me; and I must not risk it any
     longer. But of course, when you know it’s so necessary, I can trust
     to your spirit to get well, and join me as I arranged. We’ll have a
     run into Edinburgh and do the business, and then I can write home.
     I don’t care much about seeing sights myself, but it will all be
     new to you, and you’ll enjoy it. So get well, my pet, as fast as
     ever you can, and remember to-morrow at the old place at two
     o’clock. I’ll have a trap waiting on the hill: but for Heaven’s
     sake don’t be late.

     ‘You may think me joking, but I never was more serious in my life.
     That is my way, as you know. I can’t look solemn and use big words
     like you Scotch. But I mean it all the same. If you don’t love me
     enough to come to me to-morrow, I’ll take it for granted you don’t
     love me at all. I will go right away by myself, and I can’t hold
     out any hope to you that I will ever come back. Now don’t mistake
     me, or think I am threatening you. I have waited long enough, and
     you must not make a fool of me any longer. If I am once driven
     away, the chances are I can never return to Loch Diarmid--or to
     you. Come then now. It is our only chance. I will wait for you
     to-morrow as I did to-day. I shall be there at half-past one, and I
     shall wait till a quarter after two. No longer. You must be
     punctual. It’s for you to decide if we are to be together for ever,
     or separated for ever. I can do no more. To-morrow at the old
     place, or most likely never in this world.

     ‘Come, Isabel, my darling, come! Don’t fail me. If you do, I will
     never see you more.

                                           ‘Yours, if you will have me,

                                                                ‘H. S.’



When he had finished this epistle he read it over with a little
complacency. If anything would do it, surely this would do it; though,
indeed, there was no reason to believe that Isabel required any special
entreaty. As he thought it over, it occurred to him that probably she
had fainted out of sheer aggravation and passion when she found she
could not go to him; and that was easily comprehensible. When he had
folded his note, and got up to find some wax to seal it (for envelopes
were not common articles in those days), he found the letters Mr.
Lothian had told him of on the table, and tore the first that came
uppermost open, suddenly, holding still his love-letter in his hand. His
face grew heavy as he read, and pale. He went back to his chair and
hurried through it, and the other which accompanied it. They were
written on the same day, and to the same purpose. His father was ill.
One of the letters was from his sister, the other from the doctor.

‘Come for mamma’s sake,’ wrote the first. ‘Papa is fearfully angry, and
threatens to change his will. For your own sake don’t waste a moment.’

‘Your father is dying,’ said the doctor. ‘There is not a moment to lose.
He is clamouring for a lawyer. Everything that I can do to postpone this
you may be sure I will. But come! you may yet be in time.’

Young Stapylton wiped the heavy moisture from his forehead and stared
into the air as if he had been staring at himself. ‘Clamouring for a
lawyer!’--‘threatening to change his will!’ Horace was not a devoted
son, but such words as these penetrate the most callous heart. After the
first shock he set himself to consider with a promptitude that did him
credit. There was not a moment to lose. After all, it was just as well
he had packed his bag. He would borrow the miller’s horse and the
minister’s old gig, and there was still time perhaps to get to Glasgow
before the English mail should be gone. But there was not a moment to
lose. It was only when he sprang up to prepare for immediate departure
that he found the note to Isabel crushed in his hand, and bethought
himself of her. He sat down again hastily and added a few words to it:
and he was in the act of sealing it at Mr. Lothian’s writing-table when
the minister came in. Even then a spark of malice crossed his mind. Here
was the best messenger he could find to carry his love-letter--and it
would be a Parthian arrow, a farewell blow at his adversary.

‘My father is ill,’ he said; ‘I must go instantly. There is just time to
catch the coach for Glasgow if Andrew White will lend me his mare. I am
going to ask him now.’

‘Going--instantly?’ said the minister, stupified, looking at the two
letters on the table. Stapylton gathered them carefully up and nodded in
reply.

‘I shall see you again,’ he said. ‘I must rush up now to the mill. I may
have the gig, I suppose? But look here,’ he continued, coming back from
the door. ‘There’s one good turn you can do me, if you will. If not I’ll
send it by someone else; will you take this note for me to the Glebe
when you go?’

The minister started slightly and coloured high, but he made a little
ceremonious bow at the same time and held out his hand. ‘I will take
it,’ he said gravely; and then, perhaps out of the softening of his
heart towards the young fellow, who was thus torn away at such a moment,
leaving him master of the field--for to be left master of the field is
very softening and consolatory to the soul--he laid his hand upon
Stapylton’s arm. ‘The doctors says it is but grief and agitation--you’ll
be glad to hear it,’ he said.

‘Yes, yes,’ cried Stapylton, scarcely taking in the words; ‘and I may
have the gig? There is not a moment to lose.’




CHAPTER XX


Next morning Mr. Lothian went to the Glebe as early as he could permit
himself to go, though his heart had been on the way for hours before he
permitted his reluctant footsteps to follow. He found Isabel lying on
the sofa in the parlour, in the very spot where Margaret had died, and
naturally the association of ideas struck him profoundly. ‘Why have you
laid her there?’ he said to Jean, turning back from the door. There went
a chill to his heart as if he had seen the tragedy all acted over
again, and heard that the end was already approaching.

Jean Campbell stared at him, only partially comprehending what he could
mean. ‘Where else could I put her,’ she said, ‘unless it was ben in the
kitchen with me? and the doctor says she’s to be kept quiet. And it’s
mair cheerful there than in a bedroom, where she could see nobody.’

‘Cheerful!’ echoed the minister.

‘Eh aye real cheerful,’ said Jean, in whose mind perpetual use and wont
had subdued the force of melancholy associations. ‘When I’ve put the
sofa she can see the road, and the Loch, and the steamboat, which is
real diverting--and I’m aye coming and going to keep her cheery myself.
She’s no to call ill. It’s but the sorrow and the weakness and a’ her
trouble. We’ve no need to be alarmed about her health, he says.’

Mr. Lothian, silenced by this matter of fact treatment of the subject,
went into the parlour, feeling even his own apprehensions a little
calmed down.

‘I am very glad to hear you are better,’ he said.

‘Oh, yes. I never was ill to speak of. I know I never was ill,’ said
Isabel, turning away her head.

‘Then perhaps the rest and quiet is all you want?’ said the minister,
not knowing in his agitation what to say. And then there was a pause.
There were a hundred things which he had longed to say to her, but could
not when the moment thus came. He felt as if some cruel necessity was
upon him to think of Margaret--to remind her that Margaret had died just
where she was lying--to beg her to change her attitude, and look, which
made his heart sick with terror. He had to restrain himself with an
effort from suggesting to her this strange topic. And perhaps the other
things he was tempted to say would have been less palatable still. At
last, after a perplexed and painful pause, he brought out of his pocket
the letter of which he was the unwilling bearer.

‘I have a letter for you,’ he said, ‘it was left with me last night.’

‘A letter!’ said Isabel, growing pale, and then she turned it about in
her hands, and looked at it. ‘It has no address.’

‘It was put up in such haste,’ said Mr. Lothian. ‘Isabel, will you read
it now, in case I can give you any explanation?--or shall I go away?’

‘It is from----’

‘Horace Stapylton. I gave my promise I would bring it--though against my
will.’

Isabel gazed at him, for a moment growing pale. She held the letter
helplessly in her hand. What could he mean? It had been _left_ with him
last night. He could perhaps give some explanation. What could he mean?
Her pulse began to beat again as it had not done since her faint. She
made Mr. Lothian a little sign with her hand to stay, for he had risen,
and stood quite apart from her in the centre of the room. Then with a
hasty hand she tore open the letter. When the minister gave a stolen
glance at her, he could see that her cheeks were growing more and more
flushed and feverish. The colour on them was no passing glow of delight
and modesty, but the burning red of excitement and sudden passion. She
went over it all rapidly, and then she uttered a low cry. Mr. Lothian
glanced at her, but, seeing that the cry was unconscious, betook himself
again to the window with what calmness was possible. Isabel had come to
the postscript. He did not look round again for what seemed to him an
age. What roused him at last was the rustle of the paper falling to the
ground, and turning round hastily, he found Isabel with her face buried
in her hands in a passion of tears. This was hard to bear. He went back
to his seat beside the sofa, and picking up the letter laid it gently on
her lap; and then he touched her shoulder softly with a fatherly,
caressing hand, and said, ‘My poor child! my poor child!’ in a voice
that came out of the very depths of his heart.

Then Isabel uncovered hastily her passionate, tear-stained face.

‘It is not that!’ she cried--‘it is not that! Oh, I think shame! Am I
one to be spoken to so?--is it my doing? I think my heart will break!
Take it and read it, and tell me if it is my doing, before I die of
shame.’

He could only gaze at her, wondering if her mind were unhinged; but
hasty Isabel, all ablaze with passion and misery, could not stop to
think. She took up the letter--her lover’s letter, and thrust it into
his rival’s hand.

‘If it is my doing--oh, never speak to me again!’ she cried. Shame and
anger, and disappointment and anguish, were all tearing her asunder. And
she had no Margaret to go to, to relieve her. Someone must give her that
support and solace which her heart demanded, or she felt she must die.
She hung upon his looks as he read it, reading his expression.

‘Could it be my fault?’ she cried. ‘Oh, Mr. Lothian, was I such a light
lass? Was it anything I did that made him write like that to me?’

‘No, Isabel,’ he said, with a blaze of rage in his eyes, taking her
feverish hand. ‘No, Isabel. My dear, think no more of it. It is that he
understands neither yours nor you.’

And then instinctively, in an instant, hasty Isabel felt the mistake she
had made, and felt that she could not bear any criticisms upon her lover
even now. She took back her letter as suddenly as she had given it, and
folded it up with trembling hands.

‘He does not understand,’ said Mr. Lothian, altogether unconscious of
this rapid revolution. ‘You speak a language he cannot comprehend. The
women he knows are a different species. Isabel, I have never said a word
against him----’

‘No,’ she cried, hurriedly. ‘No; I am always a fool, and never know what
I am doing. No. Dinna say a word now.’

Then he stopped suddenly, the very words arrested on his lips, and gazed
at her wondering, not knowing what she could mean.

‘You don’t understand me either,’ cried Isabel. ‘Oh, not a word--not a
word! You cannot judge him right; you never saw him like me. He was
bewildered with the news; he never meant that.’

‘If I were to say the like, would you ever forgive me?’ said the
minister, shaking his head. She answered only by weeping, a mode of
reply which took all power of remonstrance or protestation away from the
spectator. A hundred contradictory emotions were in Isabel’s tears.
Shame and pain over the letter; shame still sharper, if not so deep,
that she had offered it to the criticism of another; wrath against
Stapylton; rage at herself; and a certain bitterness against her
companion for not taking her lover’s part to her, for not contradicting
her, and pleading his rival’s cause. She could not have spoken all this
wild jumble of pain and passion; but she poured it all forth in tears.

It was the postscript which had specially excited her, and which ran as
follows:--

‘I have just heard that my father is ill, and I must go. I would have
waited till to-morrow even now, but I hear he might alter his will,
which would never do. It is all your own fault. I was ready, waiting for
you--as you know. What could a man do more? If you will come, and meet
me somewhere on the Border, as soon as this business is settled, you
will find me as ready then as I was to-day. No time to say a word more.’

Mr. Lothian once more left her side, and went back to the window in his
perplexity.

‘I should not disturb you,’ he said, with his back to her. ‘I should go
away. But it is grievous to me to see your tears. I would give my very
blood to save one tear falling from your eyes. And he would wring tears
of blood out of your heart; and yet he is chosen, and I am rejected.
What more can I have to say?’

‘Nothing! oh, nothing!’ cried Isabel. ‘Oh, will you not understand? I
would like to hide myself in the depths of the earth. I was going to him
yesterday, when I fainted. I have kept it a secret, and it was like a
lie burning in my heart. Now I have told you; I would have gone with him
if I had kept in life. What better am I than him? He is free to speak,
for he sees I am no better. It is my fault, and not his. And now you
know,’ cried the girl, clasping her passionate hands together, ‘and you
may despise me! I let him tempt me; I could not bear the awfu’ quiet.
I’ll cure you at least, if I shame myself. It was me that was to blame.’

‘But I am not cured. I’ll never be cured, my dear, my dear!’ cried the
grey-haired man, coming back to her, with tears in his eyes, and taking
her hands into his own. ‘It was your innocence, and your grief. Do you
think I do not know of the struggle that was in your heart?’

She left her hands indifferently in his, not seeming to care for, nor
scarcely to perceive, his emotion. She fixed her eyes vacantly upon the
air, with great tears rising in them.

‘And Margaret knows it all,’ she said; two piteous tears, the very
essence of her pain, dilated her eyes into two great globes, but did not
fall. Self-abasement could go no further. Margaret, in Heaven, would not
despise her sister. But what could she think of the variable, miserable
creature who, fresh from her own death-bed, could be tempted by such a
poor temptation, and think such thoughts as these?




CHAPTER XXI


While all this had been going on at the Glebe, a drama of a different
kind was evolving itself among scenes of strange devotion, and plans as
wild as enthusiast ever formed, at the other corner of the Loch. Mr.
John’s madness had come to a height on the night of Margaret’s death.
The sudden announcement of that event falling on him at a moment when he
had already worked himself into a kind of frenzy, had brought to a
climax this supreme crisis of his being. He went away from Ailie’s
cottage, vaguely wandering across the gloomy moor to the Glebe, and
throwing himself down there on the wet heather, watched through the
starless, solitary night within sight of the melancholy house which held
his dead love.

The result of this terrible watch was an illness against which he fought
with feverish passion, never resting nor stopping one of his ordinary
occupations. He was in the churchyard on the day of Margaret’s funeral,
shivering and burning, and scarcely able to sustain himself, but keeping
up by force of will, grasping at the cold tombstones, stopping the
melancholy train, as it dispersed, to hear ‘the word of the Lord.’

‘You have closed her up in her grave,’ he cried, his voice hoarse with
sickness and passion; ‘but when He comes, think you, your green turf and
your cold stones will hide His saint from giving Him a welcome.’

‘Come home! come home!’ said the minister, approaching the haggard
prophet, with a compassion, in which there was some touch of fellow
feeling, ‘you are too ill to be out of your bed, much less here.’

‘By God’s grace I will never yield to what you call illness,’ said Mr.
John; ‘is it for me to rest and let them leave the place where they have
laid her, with hearts like stones in their bosoms? Is she to have
lived--and is she to die, in vain?’

‘Mr. John, this is worse than folly,’ said Mr. Lothian; ‘no one here
will let Margaret’s dear name be made an occasion of strife. For her
sake, go home and take thought, and rest.’

‘For her sake, I will rest no more till He comes, or till I die,’ cried
the inspired madman: ‘but I shall not die, I will live and declare the
works of the Lord.’

There were many of the wondering party thus accosted who believed that
Mr. John had been betrayed by his grief into a new vice, the most common
failing of the country-side. ‘He’s been drinking,’ they said among
themselves: ‘puir fellow!--to make him forget.’ ‘Na, na, it’s no drink,
it’s grief,’ said others. ‘And wha are ye that speak like them in
Jerusalem,’ cried a third party, ’"they’re drunk with new wine,” when it
was the Spirit of the Lord?’

And then, a few days later, it became known in the parish that he had
bidden Ailie Macfarlane in the name of God to become his wife, and
excitement rose very high on Loch Diarmid. Something in the passionate,
haggard face, which looked like that of a man on the point of death, and
yet was to be seen more than ever at kirk and market, awed the common
mind and threw a certain light of reality upon those desperate and
tragic motives which had led him to such a proposal.

‘He’s lost Margret for this world; and now he thinks to force the Lord
to come afore His ain time and get her back,’ said Jenny Spence.

‘And Ailie--poor thing!--is to be his tool that he’ll work with. I see
his meaning--a’ his meaning, as clear as daylight. He’s out o’ his wits
about Margret Diarmid; and he’s ta’en to the drink for consolation,’
said another gossip, ‘and he hasna strength to stand it. It’ll be his
death, and that you’ll see.’

Poor Ailie, however, on her side, was of a very different mind. When
‘the word of the Lord’ had burst upon her on that night of Margaret’s
death, her very heart had failed in dismay and consternation. She had
implicitly believed all that had been revealed to herself of her own
mission, and was ready to set out at any moment without staff or scrip,
with all the simplicity of a child. But her faith failed her when Mr.
John’s strange proposal fell on her ear. ‘Is this a time for marrying or
giving in marriage?’ she asked, with something like indignation, when,
with infinitely greater vehemence, he renewed his commands to her as the
handmaid of the Lord. ‘Is not the time of His appearing near? and are we
to be burdened with earthly ties and earthly troubles when the Lord
comes to His ain work? Oh, man! I’m no made to be ony man’s helpmeet.
There are plenty round you that are better for that; it’s my meat and my
drink to serve God. I couldna think of the flesh to please my husband,
but of the Spirit to please the Lord.’

‘And yet you contradict His Spirit and refuse His message,’ said Mr.
John, ‘which I brought to you out of the darkness of the night--out of a
mind rent and torn with pain, not lightly, or with common thoughts, but
from His presence. Will you please Him by rejecting His word?’

‘But it might be a lying spirit,’ said Ailie. ‘It might be to tempt
us--as if you and me had need of alliance in the flesh.’

‘We have need of alliance for the work,’ he said, with his great, heavy,
passionate eyes fixed upon her. ‘Men have gone before, but never man and
woman. The Lord has said to me, Go in to the prophetess. Fear not to
take unto thee thy wife. If you disobey, the sin be upon your head.’

‘But it has never been revealed to me,’ cried Ailie, her cheeks
crimsoning with shame, and whitening with terror. ‘When there have been
messages concerning this life, they have been revealed to them that were
to profit, and no to another. And in the mouth of two or three is every
testimony to be established. If the word comes to me I’ll no resist the
Lord.’

‘The head of the woman is her husband,’ said Mr. John, loftily, ‘it is
the sign of God’s will towards you. If you are to be given to me, your
instructions, your directions, must come through my hands. It is to me
it is revealed, for I am the head. Listen to the Lord’s voice. Want of
faith has laid one head low that should have shone above us all. Will
you let it overcome you now that have triumphed in your time? Ailie,
beware! The blasphemy that cannot be pardoned, and the sin that may not
be forgiven, is the sin against the Holy Ghost.’

‘But I canna see it! I canna see it!’ cried poor Ailie, bursting into
tears. Her dignity seemed to have deserted her, and all her spiritual
gifts. She kept indoors, shut up in her room, spending her time in
feverish prayers and divinations from the Bible. ‘I will do what the
Lord wills,’ she said to herself and others twenty times in a day; but
when any text which seemed to favour Mr. John’s cause caught her eye on
opening ‘the Book,’ she would shut it again hastily, and try again,
without any acknowledgment. All her partizans, and indeed the entire
parish, took an interest in the question which no previous features in
the movement had elicited to such an extent. The matter was discussed
everywhere, involving as it did the interest of a personal romance along
with the intense charm of the religious excitement, and calling forth a
hundred different opinions. There were some who thought that Ailie--‘set
her up!’--had won what she aimed at in making herself so conspicuous,
and that her reluctance was pretence. And there were some who, without
going so far, still felt that the promotion of a gentleman’s hand thus
offered to her, was enough to make the prophetess forget her calling.
Miss Catherine, who was of a sceptical mind, and had never given in to
Ailie’s pretensions, was so much moved by her kinsman’s madness, that it
almost broke down the barrier which had divided them since the time when
Mr. John’s evil ways had finally closed her doors against him. She even
hesitated at the church-door whether she would not pause and accost him,
and see what reason could do to turn him from his fatal intention; but
was deterred by the haggard look, the watery bloodshot eyes, the parched
and feverish lips, which struck her like a revelation. ‘I understand it
all now,’ she said, so much agitated by the supposed discovery, that she
went in tremulous to the Manse, to recover herself. ‘It is not a common
failing among us Diarmids of the old stock--but that accounts for
everything. And as for arguing with a man in that state----’

‘You mistake,’ said the minister; ‘indeed you mistake.’

Miss Catherine shook her head. ‘Well I know the signs of it,’ she said;
‘it is not a failing of the race, but when it comes it is all the worse
for that. The unhappy lad! One would think that the words of Scripture
came true, and that such a man was delivered over to Satan for the
destruction of the flesh.’

‘He has been wrong, no doubt; but not in that way,’ said Mr. Lothian.
‘It is grief--despair if you like; and all this excitement, and
agitation, and sickness, which he will not give in to--but not what you
suppose.’

Once more Miss Catherine shook her head. ‘He is but a distant cousin,
thank God,’ she said to herself. But yet he was related nearly enough to
throw upon the house of Lochhead a certain share of the responsibility.
‘I am glad his poor mother is safe in her grave,’ she added; ‘ye preach,
and ye preach, you ministers, but ye never will persuade the young what
a weary wilderness this world is, nor the old that there’s anything but
tribulation and sorrow in it. Will ye marry them when all is done and
said?’

This question was asked so abruptly, that Mr. Lothian was startled.
‘Marry whom?’ he asked.

‘Those I am speaking of: John Diarmid and that lass. Is it a thing you
can bless, you that are an honest man, and know your duty, and have some
experience in this world?’

‘My dear Miss Catherine,’ said the minister, ‘you have too much
experience yourself not to know that if they’ve made up their minds it
will make little difference what I do or what I think. I have no right
to say they are not to marry if they please.’

‘No; I wish you had,’ said Miss Catherine, rising: ‘and I wish there was
some kind of a real government, or some control, that men should not be
left to make fools of themselves and put shame upon an old name whenever
they please.’

‘She is not his equal,’ said Mr. Lothian, ‘but there is no shame.’

Miss Catherine marched out of the Manse gates strenuously shaking her
head. ‘A lass that has preached and prayed and ranted in a public
place!’ she said, with a mixture of lofty indignation and contempt,
shaking out her great shawl and rustling her silk gown, so that the
minister felt himself buried and lost in their shadow. And she continued
to shake her head as she went majestically alone down the slope and took
her way home through the village.

When the minister was left by himself at his own gate a sudden impulse
seized him to interfere in this delicate matter; or perhaps not to
interfere--but at least to exercise that privilege of curiosity or
interest which a clergyman, like a woman, is permitted to feel. He went
up the brae towards the little line of cottages where Ailie lived, with
kindness in his heart to the visionary girl, notwithstanding all her
recent denunciations of his lukewarmness and interference with his
business. Half way up, he met Mr. John coming down in his rapid,
excited, breathless way. The two men paused and came to a stop opposite
to each other, without for the first moment any attempt to speak. Mr.
Lothian was half alarmed when he saw the ravages which so short a time
had wrought on the enthusiast’s face. He himself looked young and ruddy
beside John Diarmid, who must have been at least a dozen years his
junior. There were deep lines under his eyes and about his haggard
mouth; his cheeks were hollow, his eyes seemed increased in size as well
as in fire; and a beard, a wonder in those days, the only symptom by
which he had betrayed the languor of the fever which had been consuming
him, covered the lower part of his face. This beard had been visible at
church that morning for the first time to the general public, and the
parish had involuntarily looked with distrust upon its prophet when they
saw that symptom of eccentricity on his chin. But Mr. Lothian was not so
easily shocked. Nevertheless, it was Mr. John who was the first to
speak.

‘You will soon be free of us,’ he said, in his deep voice; ‘the time of
the visitation of Loch Diarmid is nearly at an end. Him that is unworthy
let him be unworthy still. We’ll hand them back to you and your sermons.
A greater work is opening before us now.’

‘If you will tell me what it is, I will be glad,’ said Mr. Lothian. ‘I
have heard, but vaguely. Where are you going? and with whom? and to
whom? You are not a villager, like the rest, Mr. John, but know the
world.’

‘I have bought my knowledge dear,’ he said; ‘but I’ve offered it all up
on the altar with the rest. I make no stand on my knowledge of the
world. Henceforward we know no man after the flesh. I answer you, we are
going to the world; the Lord will direct us where.’

‘But will you start,’ cried the minister, ‘and with a young woman unused
to such fatigue on no better indication than that?’

‘The same indication that Israel had--the pillar of cloud by day and the
banner of light by night. But I cannot discuss it with a carnal mind.
The Lord will direct where we are to go.’

‘And that is all?’

‘That is all; if you had fathomed Heaven and earth, could you know more
than that, or have a guidance more sure?’

‘Mr. John,’ said Mr. Lothian, with a certain impatience; ‘you know so
much better than the rest. Whatever they take into their heads they will
believe in: but you, who are a man of the world----’

Mr. John gave a sweep of his hand as if it were to say, ‘Get thee behind
me, Satan,’ and passed his questioner. ‘I am the servant of the Lord,’
he said. There was in the man’s look, in his nervous movements, in the
extraordinary absorbed expression of his face, such a sense of the
reality of his extraordinary purpose that the minister found not another
word to say. He paused and looked after the wayfarer making his way,
absorbed and intent upon his own thoughts, down the hill. It was no
vulgar enthusiasm at which a man of higher training might smile. By
whatsoever process Mr. John had arrived at it--whether it was all honest
throughout, or if there had been any deception to begin with, it was
sufficiently true now. He at least believed in his own mission. Mr.
Lothian turned and continued his way with a sigh. There is something in
such fervour of conviction which moves the mature, experienced man of
thought to a certain envy. No inducement in the world could have moved
the minister to such straightforward, downright belief in any mission of
reformation. ‘Therefore, I will never move a multitude,’ he said to
himself, ‘and who knows----’

Who knows? I am a fool for Christ’s sake, said Paul who was no fool. Was
not there something divine in the conviction, even if that were all?

When the minister reached the cottages on the brae, the first thing that
caught his eye was Ailie standing at the open door, her face contracted
as if with pain, and her hands clasped fast in each other with a certain
beseeching gesture like a silent prayer. There was no conviction in
Ailie’s face. In the Sabbath quiet, when all the world had retired into
their houses, the prophetess stood--‘as if it was an every-day,’ her
mother said, who felt the dereliction keenly--at the open door. The
girl’s face was full of doubt and trouble and nervous disquietude. The
man who claimed to share her fate had just left her. He had been
fulminating into her ear once more ‘the message of the Lord.’ He had
upbraided her for her doubt, her love which was failing from the love of
espousals, her strength which was growing weary in the way. ‘That lack
of faith with which she had reproached Margaret Diarmid was now imputed
to herself. And Mr. John had left the prophetess who was to him ‘the
sister, the wife,’ of apostolic precedent, quivering all over with
wounded pride and feeling. Poor Ailie did not know it was pride. She
believed it was the tenderness of conscience, the tenderness of heart,
which could not bear to feel itself guilty of the ingratitude imputed to
her. But she was sore and wounded, not knowing how to bear it, fighting
blindly against what it was more and more evident must be the will of
God and her fate.

‘Ailie!’ said Mr. Lothian, looking at her with kind, fatherly eyes. It
was true he was Isabel’s lover, strange even to himself as such a
position was; but in presence of every other woman in the world, he was
a man growing old, a man calm and sobered, fully sensible of his age.
‘Ailie, I have come to ask for you, though it is long since I have seen
you of your own will. You have higher pretensions nowadays; but still
you are one of my flock----’

Ailie lifted upon him her lucid, visionary eyes which were full of a
certain despair. ‘Oh, aye, oh, aye!’ she said; ‘I’m but one of the
flock. I thought I had the Spirit of the Lord. But the oracle’s dumb and
the books are closed. Oh, minister, you’re no a man of light, but I
think in your heart you’re a man of God. If you were required to walk in
a new path, and had nae instruction given to your ain soul, what would
ye do--what would ye do?’

Mr. Lothian was brought to a stand-still by the eagerness in her eyes,
and the pathos in her voice. He was in earnest, it is true, in wishing
her well, and yet in pursuing his own religious way. But he was not in
such deadly earnest as this. It was not a matter of life and death to
him to come to a certain conclusion on any one point that remained to be
considered in life. And in the calm of his age he could scarcely
understand the young creature’s passionate eagerness. He faltered a
little in his answer. ‘Ailie,’ he said, as any other man of his years
would have done, ‘I would consider which was best.’

Ailie, who had been gazing wistfully at him, as if with some new hope,
turned away her head suddenly, throwing up her hands with an expression
of despair. ‘The best!’ she cried; ‘God’s way is aefold, and no many.
His will is one, and has to be done. Oh, ye that think ye can shift and
dally to please Him this way or that way. Am I asking which is best? Can
ye no wake out of your sloth and open the eyes of your spirit and tell
me what’s the will of God?’

She had expected no answer, and indeed turned from him leaning her head
against the portal of the humble door. But the minister felt himself
called upon to speak.

‘Nature is God’s servant as well as you and me,’ he said, ‘and Nature is
speaking against this, Ailie--speaking loud. Whatsoever leads ye from
your natural duties and affection, you may be sure is not the will of
God.’

Ailie raised her head and looked at him, wondering beyond expression to
find herself so admonished. ‘I’ve nae duties but to follow God’s will,’
she said; ‘to follow Him to the end of the earth. Oh, if I could but
open the way of the Lord to you and the like of you. Nature’s but a poor
handmaid of His grace, no a mistress nor a guide. Oh, man, with your
grey head, that should ken what God’s service is, how can you speak of
nature to me?’

‘And what if it were that you wanted to consider above all else?’ said
the minister, laying his kind hand on her shoulder. Ailie put him aside
without a word. A little shudder seemed to run through her at his touch.
If it was her ecstasy that was coming upon her, or if it was merely a
movement of the nature which she defied, Mr. Lothian could not tell; but
she passed him thus, taking no further notice, and glided across the
road like a ghost to the heathery braes which stretched away into the
distance.

‘As if it were but an every-day,’ said her mother, who appeared in the
passage behind, ready to pour out a flood of troubles into the
minister’s ear. The Sabbath-day was a more rigorous institution in
Scotland then than now, and the inhabitants of the surrounding cottages,
most of whom would have considered a Sunday walk, which was not a work
of necessity, to be something like a crime, looked on perturbed, and not
knowing what to make of it, when Ailie, thus driven by the intensity of
her feelings, sought solitude and counsel on the hill.

‘There’s Ailie away across the braes,’ cried a weary young prisoner in
one of the neighbours’ houses. ‘It canna be a sin. Oh, let me go too!’

‘Are ye a prophet of the Lord like Ailie?’ said the mother with fierce
contempt. The Holy Maid was above those laws which weighed so rigorously
upon ‘common folk.’




CHAPTER XXII


Ailie went forth, not to seek counsel of flesh and blood, but to lay, as
she would have said, her ‘burden before the Lord.’ Her eyes were bent
upon the ground, for her heart was heavy; her mind was full of a
wandering chaos of thoughts, through which she sought in vain for
anything which she could take as an indication of the will of God.

The braes lay lonely under the faint occasional glimpses of a watery
sun. It was Sabbath all over the silent country; something exceptionally
still marked the exceptional day. The little steamer that fumed and
fretted up the Loch every afternoon about this hour was of course
invisible, and so were the boats which for use or pleasure dotted the
water on week-days, and added one characteristic sound to the usual
noises. The people going home from church had all disappeared. Nothing
moved except the blue smoke from the cottage-roofs, and sometimes a shy
rabbit or invisible wild creature among the high heather. And yet by and
by even Ailie, absorbed as she was, became aware that she was not the
only wanderer on the hill-side. Under the birch-tree, someone sat
crouched together, whose heart was full, like her own, of many thoughts.
There was but one creature on the Loch who was likely to seek such a
hermitage. Perhaps had Ailie’s thoughts been at their usual strain she
would never have remarked her companion; but earthly things had come in
to confuse the current of her imagination; and a certain sense of
companionship, and even of possible help, came to her. ‘She’s but a
simple thing,’ was her first idea, and then, ‘She’s Margret’s sister,’
the young enthusiast added to herself. Ah, blessed Margaret! maiden
Margaret! whom Ailie had striven to keep out of that quiet, sheltering
grave and to deliver to all those cares of life which for the first time
had now come upon herself. She drew close to Margaret’s sister with a
faint throb of expectation. ‘Am I to judge whence the word may come?’
she said to herself. ‘Is it not out of the mouths of babes and sucklings
that He perfects praise?’

Isabel had not yet made her appearance at church to her stepmother’s
infinite distress, though it was one of the unalterable etiquettes of
rural life ‘after a death.’ The wilful girl had declared with tears that
she could not bear it. ‘With everybody looking, and looking, and all the
folk going past, that used to stop and say, How is she? It would break
my heart,’ said Isabel. And she had stolen out to the braes when Jean
and the children returned from church, feeling the silence a consolation
to her.

At that moment she was more absorbed in her thoughts than Ailie, being
hopeless and expecting no consolation or deliverance; and when the
rustle of the heather caught her ear, and looking up she saw Ailie’s
slender figure standing over her, a movement of impatience woke in
Isabel’s mind. Nobody could give her any comfort, could they not then
leave her alone? It was all she asked. To be left to brood over the
ending of her early, lonely life and all her dreams. This was all that
now remained to her. To others, life renewed itself, changed its
fashions, put forth new blossoms, extended, full of light and hope, into
the future; but hers was over. Could they not have the charity to leave
her at least alone?

‘Is it you, Isabel?’ said Ailie, coming to her side.

‘Aye, it’s me. I thought I was sure to be alone here. Do you take your
walks all the same on the Sabbath day?’

‘To me a’ days are the same,’ said Ailie. ‘If I ken mysel I have nae
desire but to ay be doing my Master’s business. Sabbath or every day, I
make no difference. And the silence is fine, and the air sweet to-day,
like every day.’

‘It is not silence now,’ said Isabel, with the fitful, hasty temper for
which, as soon as the words were said, she was sorry and penitent.

‘No,’ said Ailie, from whom the great perplexity she was in had taken
much of her solemn aspect. ‘It’s no silence now, and whiles there are
better things than silence. Isabel, when I saw ye among the heather, I
felt that the Lord sent ye to give me an answer in my trouble. It’s like
drawing the lot; and I’ve done that o’er and o’er by myself, and I canna
see it. But you, you’re innocent, and ken nothing about him or me. I’ll
draw the lot at you, Isabel. I’m no saying it to make you vain. It’s
because you’re young, and soft, and no learned in the ways of this
world, but like a little bairn. Isabel,’ said the young prophetess,
kneeling down suddenly at her side, and gazing into her face with those
visionary eyes which were wild in their pathos, ‘am I to do what he
bids, or no?’

The question raised Isabel out of her personal brooding. She was
startled--almost frightened by the vehemence of the appeal. ‘Oh! how can
I tell you, or what do you want me to say?’ she said, clasping her
hands; and then she remembered what she had heard about Ailie and Mr.
John, and shrank at the thought of the responsibility thus placed in her
hands.

‘Tell me aye or no,’ said Ailie, gazing so into her face, into her eyes,
that Isabel’s very soul was moved. She bore the look as long as she
could, and then she covered her face with her hands.

‘Your eyes go through and through me,’ she said, ‘and I cannot judge for
you. I am not like her that is gone. I am but Isabel. I cannot guide
myself. And you that have more light than all the rest--how should I
help you?’

‘I am giving no reasons,’ said Ailie, ‘it’s no a time for reasons. It’s
out of the mouth of babes and sucklings--Isabel, say aye or no?’

‘Then I’ll say aye,’ said Isabel, suddenly lifting her head with a gleam
of her old impatience. It was far from being spoken like an oracle of
God. It was uttered hastily, with a certain nervous distaste to being
thus questioned. But when she saw the effect her words produced, her
heart failed her. Ailie sank down helplessly on the road. She did not
faint, as Isabel, being somewhat pre-occupied by her own first
experience of bodily weakness, thought. She sank down in a heap without
making an effort or a struggle. Every tint of colour fled from her face.
Her eyes, which alone seemed to have any life left in them, were raised
with a look of such reproach as made her hasty adviser tremble. But
Ailie did not say a word. She lay with the air of one stunned and
helpless among the heather. Then after the first minute a sob came from
her lips. Isabel was overcome by her own fears.

‘Oh, Ailie!’ she cried, ‘I meant nothing. Why should you put such weight
on what I say? I was impatient, and I said the first word that came to
me. I did not mean it. I meant No instead. Oh, Ailie, will you listen
now to what I say?’

‘When I’m come to myself,’ said Ailie, waving her hand. Her voice was so
low as scarcely to be audible. Then her pale lips moved, though no sound
came from them at first; and her eyes turned upward with such an
expression of submission and pain, as Isabel had never seen. ‘No my
will,’ Ailie murmured, with her hands holding her breast, ‘no my will,
but Thine.’ It was a voice as of despair, when a little thrill of
renewed vigour made it audible. Awe stole over her companion, whose
careless words had done it. Isabel, in her self-reproach, rose up from
her seat in haste. She took off the shawl in which she was wrapped, and
kneeling down beside Ailie endeavoured to place it under her. She put
her arms round her with a remorse that made an end of pride. ‘Oh, Ailie,
I meant nothing! It was my hasty way,’ she cried, bending over her,
kissing her even in her eagerness. Ailie did not resist the soft caress.
She laid her head down upon Isabel’s shoulder, and closed her eyes,
which were strained and painful with so much emotion. ‘My soul is poured
out as water--my strength hath He weakened in the way,’ she said,
leaning back with closed eyes. The struggle was over. She had resisted
long; but in this fantastic way at last she had satisfied herself, and
would struggle no more.

And thus the soft air breathed on them, and the still moments passed
over those two young creatures, clinging to each other among the silence
of the hills, with the sorest ache in their hearts which each had ever
known. Isabel in her fright had almost forgotten hers. She sat embracing
Ailie who leant upon her, and wondering what it was which had moved the
girl so strangely to the exclusion of her own thoughts, which had been
bitter enough. Once before Isabel had spoken in her haste, and her voice
had been taken for an oracle of God. She had never forgotten the awful
sense that, had she but held out and struggled against utterance,
Margaret’s life might have been spared; she had given way to her
feelings then and again now; and what was it that she had done this
time?--something which she had never anticipated and did not yet
understand. In her trouble she spoke, with a voice that trembled,
closely in her companion’s ear.

‘O Ailie, you are not to mind! I was not thinking what you meant or what
it was. I said the first thing that came into my head, as I am always
doing. Ailie, tell me what it is and then we’ll think--we’ll try and see
what is best.’

‘No,’ said Ailie, faintly, ‘it wasna that I wanted. I wanted but one
word, the first that came into your head. It was drawing the lot. If you
had kent what I meant it would have been different. No, it’s a’ past.
I’ve struggled and fought in my mind like a profane person. It has ay
been the same in the Book itself; whiles one word, whiles another; but
ay saying, “Yes, yes"--ay about the bridegroom and the bride. But I said
to myself, the next time it will be different. And now there’s you. I
thought She’ll say No, the innocent thing. She’ll divine by my eyes that
my heart’s broken. And you didna look at me, Isabel, to let yourself be
turned away, but said what was put into your mind.’

‘Is it about you and Mr. John?’ said Isabel, bending down to her ear.

A shudder ran through Ailie’s frame. ‘Ay,’ she said, with a long sobbing
sigh. ‘But if it’s the Lord’s will, nae man shall hear me say a word
more. And, Isabel, if it come to pass, and ye see him and me together as
we’ll have to be, you’ll not take any notice; what I must do I will do
to the full, and no in part.’

‘But, O Ailie! you’ll never do it; you must not do it--if you don’t love
him!’ said Isabel.

She shrank and hesitated to say the word. It seemed to her a kind of
blasphemy.

‘Could I have said it to Margaret?’ she asked herself. And was not
Ailie, too, like Margaret, a dedicated virgin, above such suggestions of
this common earth?

‘Oh, whisht!’ said Ailie, with a wild, sudden flush of colour flaming
over her face. ‘Whatever the Lord’s will may be, I am His handmaid to do
it. But, eh! how I’m punished now! I wouldna let your Margaret be. I
would bid her back to earth when she was at Heaven’s door--no thinking
what was waiting for myself. Though I’m no murmuring against the Lord.’

And then there was a moment of silence, on the one side full of eager
revolt and determination to oppose; on the other of that stunned
submission which comes after a great blow.

‘Oh, no--no! it cannot be,’ cried Isabel, clasping in her arms the girl
for whom, up to this moment, she had felt so little sympathy. ‘I will
never believe it is God’s meaning. If you did not love him you would
hate him. How could you help it? It cannot be--it must not be!’

‘Whisht--whisht!’ said Ailie, with a faint momentary smile, ‘you’re ay
so earnest. Oh, if ye would come with us, Isabel, for _her_ sake, and
put yourself on the Lord’s side. Whisht!--What’s God’s doing can never
harm His servants. I’m no rebelling now, that’s a’ past. The worst is I
canna see my work, nor what remains for me in this world,’ she added,
with a piteous gentleness, ‘for the spirit of prophecy is ta’en from me
as would be fit, when I’m under another, and no free in my ain power.
Or, maybe, it’s my een that are blinded,’ she said, putting her hand up
to them with a close pressure, as if they ached. But it was not because
they ached. It was because they were full to overflowing with a stinging
salt moisture. She would not yield to that common mode of relief. ‘Why
should I greet when the Lord’s will is manifest?’ she said, all at once.
‘It would more suit me to greet if I knew not what that was.’

‘But it cannot be God’s will and you so sore--sore against it,’ cried
eager Isabel, ‘in your heart.’

‘I’m no such a rebel,’ cried Ailie, with a start. ‘Oh, I’m no so ill as
you think--me that am set to be a sign to His people. Now it’s all
past,’ she added, raising herself up. ‘And, Isabel, though you dinna
understand, you’ve been real good to me, and I’ll never forget it. Oh,
will ye no come and open your heart now to the Lord, as long as the day
of visitation lasts? I canna bide to think that Margret’s sister should
be on the world’s side, and no on the Lord’s.’

‘I never was on the world’s side,’ said Isabel, with something of her
natural impatience, rising, as Ailie did so, to her feet.

‘He that is not with us is against us,’ said the young prophetess. ‘O
Isabel! Dinna trust in the good that’s just nature. The day is near
past--the night is at hand. And you thinking of love, and pleasure, and
the delights of this life, and no of that awfu’ day.’

‘Delights!’ said Isabel, holding up the heavy crape on her dress to the
intent eye which remarked no such homely particulars; and then she
turned hastily and went away--partly irritated, partly weary. She had
forgotten her own burden to minister to the other. And she had need of
consolation and encouragement herself, not of weariness and excitement.
She turned, as was her hasty way, and left the visionary creature
standing behind her on the hill. Ailie stood and gazed after the rapid,
retreating figure, not offended as in a different region of society she
might have been. This parting _sans façon_ was not extraordinary among
the homely country folk. She stood and looked after her with a wistful
interest, stronger than any human sentiment which perhaps had ever
before crossed her mind. A girl free to live her natural life, free to
make her natural choice, bound by no mysterious rules, prepared to no
awful office as God’s ambassador to man--

There was a meeting the same night. Ailie shut herself up for all the
afternoon of this memorable day. She went into the little room, at the
window of which, in the middle of the night, Mr. John’s extraordinary
proposal had been first made to her, and placed her open Bible on her
bed, and knelt down before it. There she remained, fasting, in one long
trance of prayer and reverie, while the short autumn day came to an end,
and the twilight closed round her. Had her fate been to go to the stake
on the morrow, her preparation for it would have been triumphant in
comparison. But the stake could not have been a more supreme proof of
her devotion to the service of God than was this act of submission to
what she believed His will. She accepted the bitter cup from God’s hand,
and made no further struggle against her fate.

When the hour for the meeting came, Ailie wrapped herself in her plaid
and went out alone down the dark road. Her mother was in weak health,
and, with that strange diversity which is so often met with in life, was
a homely, sober woman, who thought there were ‘far ower mony meetings,’
and was more scandalised than flattered by the prominent position taken
by her daughter in them. There was a little controversy between them
before Ailie went out, over a cup of tea, which the anxious mother
importuned her child to take. ‘O Ailie! do you mean to break my heart
and murder yourself?’ she said. ‘Neither bit nor sup has crossed your
lips since morning. You’ve been ower nigh death to be that careless of
your health--if it were but for your puir auld faither’s sake, that
canna bear ye out of his sight.’

‘I couldna swallow it,’ said Ailie; ‘and he’ll have to bear the want of
me. I must forsake father and mother for the work of the Lord.’

‘Oh, lassie, ye make my heart sick,’ said the mother: ‘as if the Lord
couldna do His ain work without the help of a bit lass like you.’

But Janet’s mind did not dwell on the words. Such words were usual
enough in the highflown, religious phraseology of the moment, and the
‘work of the Lord’ might mean no more than a series of meetings, or
retirements to her room for prayer. Neither was the mother alarmed by
Mr. John’s proposal. It was ‘an awfu’ compliment;’ but in her heart she
felt that even a special revelation could not make such a _mésalliance_
possible; and that rather than suffer such an extraordinary downfall,
the aristocracy of the clan Diarmid would procure some powerful
remonstrance with Heaven itself against such a removal of all natural
boundaries. ‘Na, na, Miss Catherine will never allow it,’ she had said
when she heard; though a thrill of natural pride went through her. ‘If
she would take a little pains with herself, and put up her hair like the
rest, our Ailie is a bonnie lass,’ the mother had added to herself, not
without complacency, ‘But, na, na, it couldna be.’

The meeting was to be held that night on the south side of the Loch, in
a barn reluctantly granted by Mr. Smeaton for the accommodation of the
prophets. Before entering it, Ailie went into the cottage of the
shepherd who lived close at hand. There she found Mr. John seated by the
fire, along with several leaders of the movement. There was no other
light in the room, and he sat with his dark head, relieved against the
blaze, leaning on his hands. The others were talking around him,
arranging their little services, exchanging experiences; but Mr. John
sat silent and took no part among them. Ailie went up to him,
penetrating through the group. She held out her hand to him, standing
before the fire.

‘It shall be as you say,’ she said with a voice which almost failed her
at the last.

Mr. John turned round and gazed up at her for a moment, the ruddy light
shining in his face, as it did in hers. He was dark and haggard in that
illumination, she very pale, and with a look of exhaustion on her face.
He took her hand and held it for a moment, and then he let it drop out
of his.

‘You acknowledge the Word of the Lord, at last?’ he said, almost with
severity. And then he sprang up and interposed in the order that was
being arranged for the services, with a nervous hurriedness which
struck her strangely. She had thought that, perhaps, he at least would
be glad. But he was not glad. He rushed into the discussion which he had
retired from with an unwonted eagerness. Thus Fate had caught them both
in her net. And though Mr. John had set his heart on this thing, it
filled him with such an acute pang now he had gained it, that only
instant movement and occupation prevented him from betraying himself.
But the meeting of that night was such an ‘outpouring’ as few people
present had ever known before. A feverish earnestness filled them, born
of the very excess of pain.

‘Eh, but Ailie was awfu’ grand to-night,’ the people said. ‘Eh, if you
had but heard Mr. John!’ They were both in a half-craze of misery,
speaking like people in a dream. And thus, as the assembly foresaw,
everything was settled that night.




CHAPTER XXIII


It was an event of which the country-side remained incredulous, until
the very last moment. The strange pair were ‘cried’ in church, both
being present when the banns were proclaimed, in defiance of all
superstition: but still no one believed it could be. Ailie sat passive
in her seat while her name was read out, not a passing flicker of
colour, not an indication of embarrassment being visible about her. And,
to the amazement of the parish, no attempt at interference was made.
Miss Catherine sat still within her ancestral palace, the homely
mansion-house of Lochhead, like an offended queen. She absented herself
from church on the Sunday of the banns, and was not seen of human eye
until all was completed; but she made no attempt to interfere. Neither
did Mr. Diarmid of Clynder on the other side of the hills, Mr. John’s
uncle. The opposition which everybody had expected never made itself
visible.

Meanwhile Isabel, profoundly moved by her interview with Ailie, and by
all that had since occurred, had made up her mind to one final
remonstrance ere the sacrifice should be accomplished. When she had said
to Jean, ‘I am going to see Ailie,’ the good woman’s consternation had
known no bounds. Not only was the condescension unparalleled, but it was
not to be expected that Isabel, as a lady born, and entitled to the
possession of feelings more delicate than those of ‘common folk,’ should
yet be able to pay any visits even among her equals. ‘Ailie!’ she
remonstrated energetically; ‘and wha’s Ailie, that you should gang to
see her at such a time? She’s no John Diarmid’s wife yet; and if she
was----’

‘That is why I must see her,’ said Isabel. ‘She must never marry that
man!’

Upon which Jean uttered the usual comment half in scorn and half in
indignation. ‘Set her up! I would like to ken what right she has to ony
such man.’

‘She does not want him,’ said Isabel. ‘She’ll go and marry him and break
her heart. Oh, I must go! If they were cried yesterday there is no time
to lose.’

‘They’re to be married the morn,’ said Jean. ‘And if that is what you
have set your heart on, wait till I’ve gotten on my Sunday bonnet. I’ll
gang with ye myself.’

‘It is not necessary,’ said Isabel.

‘Bell, my bonnie woman,’ said her stepmother, ‘I ken better what is
needful than you do. It’s no a moment to have you wandering on the road
your lane.’

And thus it was that Jean found herself in the midst of the village
group, while Isabel penetrated into Ailie’s cottage. The young
prophetess was seated, silent, with a sombre fire in her eye, dejected
yet excited, when Isabel was ushered in by her anxious mother. Janet had
begun to take alarm about her daughter’s aspect; but such an honour as
the visit of the Captain’s Isabel, no doubt paid to the prospective Mrs.
Diarmid of Ardnamore, was a foreshadowing of greatness to come which
went to her heart.

‘Ailie, my woman!’ she said. ‘Here’s Isabel from the Glebe. It’s most
kind of her to come and see you, and I hope you’ll let her see you think
it kind.’

‘Isabel!’ said Ailie, dreamily; she was sitting on the side of her bed,
pondering over her little Bible. ‘Oh, aye, mother, I’m glad to see her;
if she’ll come ben.’

‘Let me speak to her alone,’ Isabel had begged at the door; and the
mother, half pleased yet half doubtful, withdrew with wistful looks. If
perhaps the mission of the mourner might be to reconcile Ailie with the
wonderful match she was making; and yet, again, a fanciful young girl
might do her harm.

‘I’ve come to speak to you before it is all over,’ said Isabel. ‘O,
Ailie, you mind what you said to me? You are not happy. You are not
looking happy; and yet they say you’re to be married----’

‘The morn,’ said Ailie, mechanically.

‘To-morrow!’ repeated Isabel, carefully choosing her words, to be more
impressive; ‘and yet you are not happy. Ailie, Ailie, it must not be!’

‘What’s God’s will must be,’ she said; ‘happy is neither here nor
there;’ and began again to turn over the leaves of the small Bible she
held in her hands.

‘He is going to take you away,’ said Isabel, ‘where none of your friends
perhaps will ever see you more; where you will be all alone with none
but him, and no love for him in your heart. Oh, Ailie, listen! you will
hate him if ye cannot love him. I could not rest; I’ve been in no
strange house till now _since_--but I could not rest. Oh, Ailie, God
would not have you to be miserable; that can never be His will. You are
wiser than me, but you have ay been thinking of other folk, and not of
what was in your own heart.’

‘Little but deceitfulness and wickedness,’ said Ailie, musing, ‘well I
know; and a root of bitterness in the best. But, Isabel, there’s no a
word to say. It’s no in my own hands. It was settled and ordained before
you or me were born.’

‘And nothing will make you change your mind?’

‘It’s no my mind I’m speaking of,’ she said, with a half-despairing
smile; ‘if it was me to decide! But whisht! whisht! and say no more; my
mother is coming. I’ve had ill thoughts and thankless thoughts, and
you’ve seen them, Isabel; but I’m the handmaid o’ the Lord, and it’s no
to His glory to betray my weakness--no even to my mother.’

‘I’ll not betray you,’ cried Isabel, with a little natural heat. Ailie
turned wearily away, with a sigh of languor and heaviness; and just then
her mother came bustling in, carrying a white muslin dress on her
extended arms.

‘It’s no to call grand,’ said Janet, ‘but I thought you would like to
see it. As for Ailie, she takes nae mair notice than if a wedding was a
thing that happened every day.’

‘She’s so full of her own thoughts,’ said Isabel, instinctively
attempting an excuse.

‘Thoughts are grand things,’ said Mrs. Macfarlane, ‘and our Ailie, as is
weel kent, is a lass far out of the ordinar. But her wedding-gown! A
woman made out of stone would take an interest in that! I would be real
thankful if you would put some real feeling in her mind.’

‘She has done her best,’ said Ailie, still bending absorbed over her
book; ‘but I’m thinking of the Lord’s will, and no of men’s pleasure. My
black gown that I wear every day is good enough for me.’

‘Hear to her!’ said the mother; ‘but eh, Isabel, you that’s young
yoursel, ye might tell her this earth is nearer than Heaven, and that we
maun take some thought for the things of the flesh.’

‘Do you think she’s happy?’ said Isabel, wistfully, feeling the full
misery of this indifference, and yet bound by honour not to reveal what
she knew of Ailie’s mind.

‘Happy!’ echoed Janet, ‘with Ardnamore waiting to make a lady of her?
What would she get better in this world? And I hope you’ll no put
nonsense in her head. It would just break my heart.’

‘I’ll put no nonsense in her head,’ said Isabel. And then, surmounting
her irritation, she added, ‘But oh, think if she were to be unhappy, and
away in the world with nobody to comfort her.’

The mother turned away with a little laugh. ‘Simple thing!’ she said,
under her breath, ‘you’re like hersel; ye take it a’ for gospel, every
word they say.’

‘Are they not going away?’ asked Isabel in amaze.

‘Oh, aye, they’re going away; but think ye the world’s like Loch
Diarmid, Isabel? They’ll soon tire o’ their preaching and their
wandering among fremd folk. She’s a’ spirit and little flesh, my poor
lamb. And her heart will fail her, and he’ll be sick o’t a’, and syne
they’ll come cannily hame. And I’ll see my bairn at kirk and market,
with her bairns about her--no a common body like me,’ said Janet, wiping
her eyes with her apron, ‘but a leddy of Ardnamore.’

‘But she’ll break her heart,’ said Isabel.

‘I’m no feared for her heart,’ said the mother. ‘She’s a loving thing,
though you wouldna think it. Her heart will turn to her husband when she
has nane but him.’

This was Janet’s programme of the strange romance. Isabel, though she
was not used to contrasts of this description, went down the hill in a
maze of reflections, wondering over the difference. Ailie’s tragic
purpose of going forth into the world to save it, her first step being
upon her own heart, and all its maiden hopes; and her mother’s
frightful, sceptical, middle-aged prescience of the effects of weariness
and failure--the inevitable disappointment, the sickening of heart, the
giving up of hope, the despairing flight homeward to seek peace at least
and quietness--stood before her side by side like two pictures. Would
the two enthusiasts content themselves with common life and comfort
after their high dreams, or was there, after all, nothing in the dreams
for which Ailie was making so awful a sacrifice? Isabel was too
inexperienced to come to light on the subject; but Janet Macfarlane’s
cheerful unbelief struck her with mingled horror and pain. She did not
ask herself whether all that was beautiful and wonderful in the hopes
and beliefs of beginning life was thus looked upon by the calm eyes of
the elders as so much delusion to be dispersed by the winds and storms.
But that suggestion of insecurity, unreality--and of the better-informed
spectator, who realised and knew the downfall that was coming--appalled
and terrified her. The sight of Mr. Lothian, who came out from the
Mansegate as she passed, was, perhaps for the first time, a relief to
Isabel. She was glad to have him come to her, to hear his sympathetic
voice, to feel that there were people in the world who were not
sceptical. ‘I have been seeing Ailie,’ she said, accounting
half-apologetically for the little shiver of nervous excitement which
she could not restrain.

‘And now you’ll come and see Miss Catherine,’ said Mr. Lothian. ‘You
cannot help the one, but you can help the other, Isabel.’

‘Me help Miss Catherine? No, Mr. Lothian,’ said Isabel, with a little
air of dignity. ‘She is never pleased, whatever I do. She would like me
to pretend to be somebody else, and not myself.’

‘And I am so foolish,’ said the minister, with a smile, ‘as to like
yourself best of all; and so does she, Isabel, if you saw her heart.
You’ll come and see her with me.’

‘To please you,’ said the girl not meaning any coquetry, nor thinking of
the tenderness with which words so unusually soft moved this man, who
might have been her father. Even as she spoke her eye caught some
passing figure in the distance, which was like that of the lover whom
she fancied she had abjured; and her heart sprang up and began to beat
furiously against her breast. She knew very well it was not
Stapylton--but the merest vision that reminded her of him, how different
was the feeling it awakened within her! She walked on leisurely by Mr.
Lothian’s side, making him soft answers, which, in spite of all his
better knowledge, filled him with a sweet intoxication. And all the time
her object was to lead him artfully with all the youthful skill of which
she was mistress to some allusion to her lover. ‘Are you glad to be
alone?’ she said at last, stooping as she did so, to pluck off a thorny
branch which had caught her dress. And he did not even perceive what
that leading question meant, so wrapt was he in the delusion
which--half-intentionally in her unconscious selfishness for her own
purposes--she had been weaving round him.

‘I would not be glad to be alone if I could have the company I like
best,’ said the deluded man; and so, deceiver and deceived, they went
along the quiet rural way.




CHAPTER XXIV


When Isabel found herself once more in the drawing-room at Lochhead, it
wrought the most curious change upon her. She sat almost silent, while
Miss Catherine and the minister talked, but with a mind awaking to all
the influences about her--the grace, the superior softness, the
refinement of the place. Life here must, it seemed to Isabel, be a
different thing from the life she had always known. There were books of
all kinds about, and her appetite for books was great, though as yet it
had been but scantily supplied. The ample window gave an amount of
atmosphere and breadth to the room, which Isabel perceived by instinct,
without knowing how it was. It was very nearly the same view as that
from the parlour window at the Glebe, and she could not tell what made
the difference; unless indeed it was the superior grandeur, splendour,
amplitude of the life. There were a hundred resources within, which were
impossible at her lower level of existence, and a much widened
perception of the world without. She had no notion that it was the old
furniture and the great windows which impressed this so strangely upon
her. It was something in the atmosphere, the expanded breathing, and
hearing, and seeing of a larger life.

And as the minister accompanied her home, Isabel, unawares, fell into a
little self-revelation. ‘You can see the same view out of the village
windows,’ she said, ‘and from the Glebe; but the Loch is grander and the
braes are higher, and away down to Clyde is like a picture--I don’t know
how it is.’

‘You like it better than the Glebe?’

‘I cannot tell,’ said Isabel; ‘it is so different; and so many things to
fill your life. I think I would never tire reading; but then I know my
books off by heart, and reading them is little good. And there’s always
a seam. I know a seam is _right_,’ said Isabel, with decision; ‘I did
not mean that.’

‘But sometimes you would like something else,’ he said, growing foolish
as he looked at her; and finding something half-divine in her girlish
simplicity.

‘I don’t know,’ she said; ‘I have made up my mind to be content. But
still one has eyes, and one can see it is different. I never thought--of
such things--before.’ And a rush of tears came to her pensive eyes.

Mr. Lothian left her finally at the door of the Glebe, and found himself
in such a state of _attendrissement_ that he rushed in once more upon
Miss Catherine as he passed the house. ‘Life is beginning to stir within
her,’ he said with excitement; ‘she is feeling that all is not over and
past. The sight of you has done her good.’

‘The sight of me is not difficult to be had,’ said Miss Catherine,
‘though it’s early yet, after a death, to get good from the like of
that.’

‘She is so young,’ said the minister, ‘her mind goes quicker than yours
and mine. Not that she grieves less; but everything goes quicker--the
days, and the events, and the beats of the heart.’

‘I doubt if you would take as much trouble to understand the beats of my
heart,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘Minister, you’re a sensible man in other
things----’

Mr. Lothian retreated from her look, and turned to the window. In
comparison with himself, Miss Catherine was an old woman; but still,
when he was brought to task for it, he had nothing to advance in defence
of his love.

‘You need not turn away your face,’ she said, with a smile, ‘as if I had
not seen it grow red and grow pale many a time at the lassie’s glance.
And she’s but a bairn when all is said. It’s a mystery to me. A woman of
your age would think as little of a lad of hers, as of an infant. And
yet you, an honest man, that might be her father, let such a lassie fill
up your very heart. No! you are a man and I am a woman; you might
explain till ye were tired, and I would never understand. A man is a
queer being, and, so far as I can see, we must take him as he is till
his Maker mends him. And about Isabel, if that lad does not come
back----’

‘Whether he comes back or not,’ said Mr. Lothian, hotly; ‘he has
disgusted her so much that she will never think of him again.’

Miss Catherine shook her head. ‘Make what progress you can while he’s
away,’ she said. ‘Keep him away if you can; but don’t you trust to her
disgust. He is her first love?’

‘I suppose so,’ said the minister, with a very rueful face.

‘Then she’ll forgive him all,’ said Miss Catherine, with perhaps a
thrill of painful knowledge in her voice; there was a vibration in it
which made her companion glance round at her with keen momentary
curiosity. But her face betrayed no story. ‘She’ll forgive him all,’ she
repeated; ‘and to undeceive her would take a long time. Perhaps it’s
only by dint of marrying him that a woman finds out what’s wanting in
her first love. And you would not like her to go through that process.
But if he keep away----’

Mr. Lothian’s face had gone through as many alternations of hope and
fear as though he had been on trial for his life. ‘He loves her,’ he
said under his breath, ‘as well as he knows how.’

‘But he loves himself better,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘and if he has to
hang about at home for fear of being disinherited he’ll save you some
trouble here. And there is no other man about the parish to come in your
way----’

‘Her thoughts are differently employed,’ he said, with a little
annoyance. ‘What does she know of the men in the parish--or care----’

‘That’s very true, no doubt,’ said Miss Catherine, gravely. ‘There was
never one like her on the Loch, nor a lad worthy of her, since Wallace
Wight. But yet Isabel has eyes like her neighbours. And there is nobody
in your way. My word! if I were a comely man like you, little the worse
for your years, and not another suitor in the field, she should be
Isabel Lothian before the year was out!’

Mr. Lothian coloured like a girl with excitement and gratification.
Scarcely on Isabel’s own cheeks could there have risen a purer red and
white. He was, as Miss Catherine said, ‘little the worse for his years.’
He was as erect and elastic in his step as if he had been
five-and-twenty--his colour as fresh, and his eyes as bright.

‘If it depends on me’--he said, with a sparkle in his eye.

‘And who else should it depend on?’ said Miss Catherine. ‘Take your
courage by both hands, and, take my word, you’ll not fail.’

Thus the house of Lochhead rained influence on this eventful day. Isabel
went home with a vague longing in her mind for wider air and a fuller
life. But when the minister had left the door, going back with his mind
full of tenderness, and just touched by hope, she sat down by the
parlour window, and took out Stapylton’s letter, and began to read
herself into satisfaction with it. The careless words which had struck
her like stings at the first reading, she set herself to smooth and
soften. ‘He meant them to cheer me,’ she said to herself; ‘to be cheery
himself and to cheer me;’ and then she would make an effort and swallow
the sentences to which no such explanation could be applied. ‘It was all
his love,’ she said again. Words change their character when thus
studied. Out of what seemed almost an insult this tender casuistry
brought but another proof of the confidence and certainty of love. ‘He
did not choose his words,’ Isabel said at length, with a certain
indignation against herself; ‘he felt I would understand--how should I
miss understanding when I knew his heart?’ And then there were other
apologetic murmurings, less assured, but not less anxious. ‘After all,
he is but a man--he does not think like the like of us;’ and--‘That will
be the English way; he always said it was different.’ Thus the fanciful
girl went on with her letter, until at length she kissed and put it away
among her treasures, all anger having gone out of her heart.

Through all the interview between Miss Catherine and the minister, in
which so very different an aspect of her affairs was discussed, Isabel
sat gazing on the Loch as it faded to evening, with a vague smile about
her mouth, and liquid soft eyes, and dreamed. She saw how it would all
happen as well as she saw the boat on the Loch making its way from
Ardnamore. Perhaps he might not come for three or even six months. His
friends would tell him what time must pass before Margaret’s sister
could consent. His mother would tell him, for surely even in England
mothers could not be so far different. And he would come asking pardon
with his lips, claiming more than forgiveness. And Margaret would bless
her sister--would plead _up yonder_ for a blessing. And the two would
stand side by side on the spot where Margaret had died, and plight their
troth as it were to her, in her very presence, to love each other for
ever and ever. She sat and dreamed while the minister, with unusual
light in his eyes, went home to dream on his side of how different an
ending. And neither the one nor the other saw aught but boundless
happiness, the very climax of life and love, and perfection of human
existence in the visionary future that lay beyond.

And then a great quietness came over the Loch. The marriage of Mr. John
and Ailie Macfarlane was a nine days’ wonder, but that died out by
degrees; and even among his relatives or hers, little, after a while,
was said of the pair. They had gone out ‘into the world,’ like Adam and
Eve, seeking the unknown region in which their Tongue would be
intelligible, and themselves received as the bringers in of a new
dispensation. But in the meantime they disappeared from Loch Diarmid,
and the lesser prophets they had left behind soon failed to interest the
crowd which was used to excitement. Things fell into their former
quietness: worldly amusements began again to be heard of.

All was very quiet at the Glebe. Day after day, week after week--nay,
month after month, Isabel had sat silent, expecting, looking for the
letter which never came, for the familiar step and voice which she had
made so sure would come back to her. And neither letter nor visitor had
come to break the wistful silence; no one knew the longing looks she
cast from her window, as the winter twilight darkened night by night,
over the gleaming surface of the Loch. She felt sure he must write,
until the time was past for writing; and then a strange confidence that
he would come seized upon her. And she had no one to whom she could say
a word of her expectations, to whom she could even whisper his name. If
Jean perceived her eager watch for the postman, her shivering start and
thrill when any footstep was audible by night, or knock came to the
door, she mentioned it to no one. Three months and not a word--then six
months, the year turning again unawares, the snow melting from the
hills, the snowdrops beginning to peep above the surface of the soil--

It would be impossible to describe all the alternations between fear and
hope which moved her as the months went on. Spring came, stretching day
by day, more green, more warm, more cheery and sunny on the hills. The
poor girl, in her loneliness, sat watching, holding on, as it were, to
the darker season which melted away under her grasp, taking comfort in
every gloomy day, saying to herself, ‘It is winter still!’ The birds
warbling in all the trees about was a trouble to her. No; not spring
again--not so far on as everybody thought; only a little lightening of
the cold, or gleam of exceptional weather. She kept this thought
steadily before her mind, through March and April, refusing to
understand what months they were. But in May she could no longer refuse
to perceive. The trees had shaken out all their new leaves from the
folds. The hill-side was sweet with wild flowers, the primroses were
over. ‘Everything is so early this year,’ Isabel said to herself with a
sick heart.

‘No so early either,’ said Jean, with profound unconsciousness of her
stepdaughter’s sentiments; ‘no that early. I’ve seen the lilac-tree in
flower a fortnight sooner than now.’

And then the girl could no longer shut her eyes. Winter was over; the
charm of early summer was in the air; everything had come again--the
lambs, the birds, the flowers, the sunshine, the fresh thrill of life
and brightness--everything except Margaret, who was dead; and Stapylton,
who was lost; and these two were all in all to Isabel.




CHAPTER XXV


This state of things could not go on for ever. Miss Catherine, who had
made a hundred vain exertions to draw her young kinswoman to her house,
and out of all the melancholy associations of her own, at last became
seriously alarmed about Isabel. And the minister, who all the winter
through had been indulging himself in such hopes, slowly woke to a
perception of the absorbed looks, the languor, the wandering of her eye,
and the paleness of her cheeks. She was very soft to him and gentle,
accepting his kindness as she had never done before, looking up to him
in a way which filled him with a thousand fond dreams. She had done this
with unconscious selfishness, because she wanted the support of
affection and kindness, not with any thought of him. She was struggling
along her solitary way with so much expenditure of strength and life
that it would have seemed hard to Isabel to deny herself that comfort on
the road, the anxious devotion that surrounded her like a soft
atmosphere. And yet she did not mean to be selfish; but by and by they
all found out that her strength and heart were failing her. ‘I canna
tell what it is,’ Jean said, with her apron to her eyes; ‘she’ll sit for
hours on the hill, and syne she’ll come home that worn, she hasna a word
for one of us; and her eyes ay wandering miles away, as if she were
looking for somebody. I canna tell what it is.’

‘It cannot be any of their wild notions,’ said Miss Catherine,
anxiously, ‘of Margaret coming back from the grave.’

‘Na, na, she has a’ her senses,’ said Jean; ‘she’ll look as pleased now
and then when she sees the minister coming up the brae.’

Mr. Lothian’s cheek flushed, but he shook his head. ‘Alas! it is not for
me,’ he said; and yet a little secret hope that perhaps it pleased her
to watch his approach crept into his heart.

‘It canna be that English lad she’s thinking of,’ said Miss Catherine;
and Mr. Lothian, struck as with a sudden chill, raised his head and
fixed his eyes anxiously on Jean’s face.

‘She never mentions his name,’ said Jean. ‘I’ve reason to think she was
awfu’ angry at him. The time she fainted she let fall words in her
sleep--Na, it canna be that.’

‘Provided it is not her health,’ said Miss Catherine; and Jean again
raised her apron to her eyes.

‘I darena say it even to mysel,’ she cried. ‘I will not say it: but, O
Miss Catherine, that’s my dread night and day. I try to shut my eyes,
but I canna forget that our Margaret was much the same. You ken weel she
was a perfect saint, and it was prayer and the Book that filled her
mind. But at first, when her illness was coming on, she would sit like
that--and look and look! It makes me that sick when I think o’t, that I
canna sit and look at the other one going the same gait. I canna do it.
I think it will break my heart.’

‘The same gait!’ said the minister, raising a blanched face of woe, ‘the
same road as--Margaret? No, no--don’t say so. It cannot be!’

But both the women shook their heads.

‘I canna be mistaken, that hae watched them baith,’ said Jean, with her
apron to her eyes.

‘And we all know it’s in the family,’ said Miss Catherine, sinking her
voice to solemnity.

There came a sudden groan out of the minister’s breast. He turned away
from them to the other end of the room, with a pang to which he could
give no expression. No, no--God could not do it: it was impossible.
Margaret--yes--whose visionary soul was fixed on heaven from her cradle;
but Isabel, impetuous, faulty, sweet human creature, whose presence made
the whole world bright. No, no; after all, God had some regard for the
hopes and wishes of His creatures: He would not thwart and trample upon
their hearts like this.

‘It’s in the family,’ repeated Miss Catherine. ‘Her mother, my
kinswoman, Margaret Diarmid, was not five-and-twenty--and her sister
younger still; and that branch of the family is extinct, you may say,
barring Isabel. But so far as flesh and blood can strive, I’ll fight for
the lassie’s life.’

Mr. Lothian had no power of speech left; but he came to her and took her
hands in his, and pressed them with a look of gratitude such as no words
could express.

‘She shall not be lost if I can help it,’ repeated Miss Catherine. ‘It
may be a kind of brag to say, but there are many things that can be done
when you take it in time. Leave her to me, Mr. Lothian, and do not break
your heart.’

This conversation took place while Isabel was absent on one of her usual
visits to the hill. When the minister had left them, Miss Catherine
turned to Jean and began to inquire into the girl’s symptoms.

‘She has no cough,’ she said; ‘I have noticed that. But now that man is
gone, tell me, Jean Campbell, are ye sure it’s not a pining for yon
English lad?’

‘I canna tell,’ said Jean doubtfully, shaking her head. ‘Whiles I hae my
doubts. She had ay a craving about the post at first. That’s past. But
if she hears a footstep sudden in the road, or maybe a neighbour, coming
in for a crack, lifting the latch at the outer door, she gives a start
that drives me wild; but she never names him. And there were some words
she let drop----’

‘Don’t tell me of words,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘It was her first love,
and there’s nothing in this world she’ll not forgive him. That’s it. And
now I see what I must do.’

But nothing was done that day, nor for several weeks after. It was, as
so often happens, the very crisis of Isabel’s affairs on which they
first discussed the question. When she came home that evening she was
ill. The spring winds were cold, and she had taken a chill on the wet
braes; and for some weeks every symptom which could most afflict her
friends made its appearance. It was whispered in the Loch, with much
shaking of heads, that the Captain’s Isabel was soon to follow her
sister: that she had fallen into ‘a decline;’ that she had never
recovered Margaret’s death; and even that the twin sisters had but one
life between them according to the common superstition, and that the one
could not long outlive the other. These prognostications reached the
minister’s ears, moving him to a misery of which the people who caused
it had not the remotest conception. On the whole the parish, though
deeply grieved, enjoyed talking this matter over; and even Jean
Campbell, though her heart, as she said, was breaking, had long
consultations with Miss Catherine, and with Jenny Spence, and many other
anxious visitors, touching the resemblance between Isabel’s illness and
the beginning of Margaret’s. She was rather bent, indeed, on making this
out to be the case, although her tears flowed at every suggestion of
danger to her remaining charge.

‘Her cough has taken no hold of her; she’ll shake it off,’ said Miss
Catherine.

‘I mind when Margaret’s was no more than that,’ Jean would answer,
shaking her head. And notwithstanding the profound pain which the
thought of any approaching misfortune to Isabel gave them, there was
almost a degree of mournful enjoyment in the comparing of notes and
exchanges of confidences which took place among the nurses. But the
effect was very different upon the minister. The mere thought of danger
to her acted upon him like a temptation to blasphemy. In such a case
what would remain to him but to curse God and die? Wherever he went,
people met him with questions. ‘Have you heard how the Captain’s Isabel
is the day?’ ‘Eh, I thought she would gang like her sister.’ ‘Ye see
twins, ye never can separate them in life or death.’ Such were the
comments he was in the daily habit of hearing; and they stung him so
that every day was full of torture--pain which, after the bright dreams
he had been indulging in, was doubly hard to bear.

But as it turned out the pain was unnecessary. Isabel had caught cold,
her body being susceptible at all points, and her mind unhinged--just
such a cold as might, had her constitution been weaker, have ended as
Margaret’s had done. Jean was right in her diagnosis--just as Isabel’s
illness began Margaret’s had begun: there had been, even to some extent,
the same cause. The shock which Mr. John’s love, and the painful
interruption of it had given her, had unstrung Margaret’s strength just
as Stapylton’s absence had done her sister. But there the resemblance
stopped. The elder sister’s constitution was feeble and Isabel’s was
strong, and other influences besides that of disappointed love had come
in, in Margaret’s case. The shock had struck at all the delicacies of
her nature, and made her sick of the life in which such thoughts could
be. And her contemplative nature, her visionary heart had taken refuge
in heaven; but with Isabel it was not so. Her illness, though it lasted
only for a few weeks, looked like an interval of months or years. It put
Stapylton at a distance from her. So long as she had lain in her sick
room, all expectation of his coming or longing for it had gone out of
her heart; and as she recovered the thought came back but dimly to her.
She had not forgotten him, but time had gone faster than its wont, and
he was further off than she could have supposed--drifted away.

Then Miss Catherine, moved by the urgency of the case as she had
scarcely ever before been moved, announced her intention of taking
Isabel away for change. As soon as she was able to move, they went to
one of the watering-places in which Scotland believes--the Bridge of
Allan, and then to Edinburgh. It was not a very long journey, but
everything was new to Isabel. It roused her in spite of herself. Youth
gained the ascendancy over all the facts which had lessened its
brightness. So many new things to see, the bright summer weather, the
change and movement--the sight of crowds and novelties, drove things
more urgent out of her mind.

And then Mr. Lothian came and paid them frequent visits; so frequent
that the parish was moved to its depths, and grumbled at his repeated
absence. ‘We might a’ dee for what he cares,’ said the women at the
village-doors; and even John Macwhirter, though unused to interfere,
gave forth his opinion on the subject: ‘I’m no a man to insist on a call
from the minister every other day,’ he said. ‘He’s enough ado with his
sermons, if he gives his mind to them as he ought; but he’s an aulder
man than me that have half a dozen weans to think of; and a bonnie
example that is to his flock, trailing over half the country after a
young lass. Lord, if I was like him I would bide. Ye wouldna see me
bring wife and bairns on my head at his time of life; and a young wife’s
a bonnie handful for an auld man. Ye may gloom, Mr. Galbraith, but
you’re no far from the same way of thinking yoursel.’

‘I’m thinking there’s many young lasses in Edinburgh and many things of
more importance,’ said the Dominie. ‘Mr. Lothian hasna left the parish
for years. And his sermons are running dry, if you’ll take my opinion.
No doubt the world’s a wicked place, but it does the best of men good to
see it now and again. I wouldna say, John Macwhirter, but even you
yourself might take a hint from smiths of more advanced views. And as
for a divine----’

‘You’re grand at your jokes,’ said the half-offended blacksmith; ‘but if
I were to take hints, as ye call it, in the same kind of style as the
minister, I would like to ken what my Margret would say? She would be
neither to hand nor to mind.’

‘Now, I was saying,’ continued the Dominie, ‘a divine has most need of
all. He hears what folk are thinking, and a’ the new wiles o’ the Evil
One to fortify your spirits against them. Maybe you think the Auld Enemy
is always the same?--which shows how much you know about it. No, no,
John. Keep you to your anvil and your iron, and let the minister alone.’

‘Na, if it’s the deevil he’s studying I’ve no a word to say,’ said John;
‘a’ the world kens there’s nae teacher for that like a woman;’ and
having thus secured the last word and the victory, as far as the
applauding laughter of his audience was concerned, John proceeded to
constitute himself the champion of the minister when the Dominie
withdrew from the field. ‘After a’ thae prophets and trash, I’m no
surprised he should take the play, but he’ll be cleverer than I take him
for if he gets bonnie Isabel.’

‘It would be the best thing she could do, a lass with no friends,’ said
one of the bystanders.

‘But she’ll not do it,’ said the blacksmith, confidently, wrapping
himself all at once in a flaming mist of sparks. Such was the general
opinion of the Loch. ‘I canna believe she’ll have the sense,’ Jean
Campbell said, to whom it was most important; and after a while the
parish almost forgave the minister for his neglect of them in
consideration of the interest with which they regarded his suit.
Everybody, except Isabel herself, was aware of the conspiracy against
her. To herself it appeared strange that Miss Catherine, out of love for
her, should leave the Loch and her own home so long, and waste the early
summer, which was her favourite season, in the dusty, windy Edinburgh
streets. Isabel accepted the sacrifice with the faith of her age in
personal attachment, and said to herself that she could never be
grateful enough to her old friend. She could not but acknowledge to
herself that the change had made of her a new creature. She looked, and
thought, and spoke, and felt herself so to do with a touch of soft
surprise--like one of the young ladies whom she had sometimes seen at
Lochhead. She, too, was a lady born--yet with envy and wonder she had
looked at the strangers whose look and air were so different from her
own. They were not different now. Insensibly to herself Isabel had
acquired another tone and air. Her soft Scottish speech was still as
Scotch as ever, but it was changed. She felt herself to move in a
different way, all her sensations were different. Sometimes she thought
of the Glebe with a thrill of strange alarm. To go back to Jean and her
children, and the solitude without books, without variety--could she do
it? Or if that was all in store for her, was it not cruel to have
brought her to this different life?

‘Now bring me some of your friends from the College, and let her hear
you talk,’ said Miss Catherine, in furtherance of her deep design. The
minister, whom she addressed, only shook his head with a doubtful smile.

‘What will she care for our talk?’ he said. ‘The nonsense of a ball-room
would please her better. She would take my friends for a parcel of old
fogies; and so indeed we are.’

‘And ready to go to the stake for your own notions all the same,’ said
Miss Catherine, with much scorn. ‘Are you, or am I, the best judge of
what she’ll think? As for ball-rooms, heaven be praised, in her mourning
that’s out of the question; and if she set her eyes upon a man under
forty, except in the street, it may be your fault, but it shall not be
mine.’

‘Will that serve me, I wonder? or is it fair to her?’ said the
scrupulous minister.

‘The more I see of men, the more I feel what fools they all are,’ said
Miss Catherine; ‘go and do what I tell you, minister, and leave the rest
to me.’

And accordingly Miss Catherine Diarmid’s lodging became the scene of a
few gatherings, which to a girl more experienced in society than Isabel
would have looked sufficiently appalling. But Isabel, with her mind and
intelligence just awakened, and with that fresh sense of ignorance which
made her intelligence doubly attractive, regarded them as banquets of
the gods. Mr. Lothian’s friends were unquestionably old fogies; they had
their ancient jests among themselves, at which they laughed
tumultuously, and the outer world stared; and they had endless
reminiscences, also among themselves, which were far from amusing to the
uninitiated. But then by times they would talk as people talked in the
old days when conversation was one of the fine arts. And Isabel opened
her great brown eyes, and her red lips fell a little apart, like the
rose-mouth of a child. She listened with an interest and admiration, and
shy longing to take part, and shyer drawing back which made it
impossible, which altogether rapt her quite out of herself. And her eyes
turned with a certain pride to the minister, who would take his full
share, and was not afraid to lift his lance against any professor of
them all. Isabel raised her pretty head when he spoke, and followed his
words with quiet understanding glances, with rapid comprehension of what
he meant, with the ever ready applause of her bright eyes. He could hold
his own among them all; he was not afraid to enter into any argument. He
contributed his full share to all that was going on; and Isabel looking
at him grew proud of him--with the partizanship of his parishioner, and
friend, and--favourite.

And all this time Miss Catherine sat, like a benevolent crafty spider at
the opening of her net. Nobody divined the deep intention in her choice
of her visitors. Not a man under forty, as she had betrayed to Mr.
Lothian, ever penetrated within her doors. If the question had been
suggested to Isabel, no doubt she would have recognised it as unusual
that gentlemen in Edinburgh should be all approaching half a century.
But it did not occur to Isabel. She was awed and filled with admiration
of the men she saw. It did not come into her heart to ask where were the
young men who would have better matched herself and the other girls
whose society Miss Catherine cultivated for her sake. Even the chatter
of these girls did not enlighten her. They talked of pleasures of which
she knew nothing--dancing all night, for instance--but how could it ever
be possible for Isabel to dance all night? No, was not this better,
loftier, a kind of amusement not inconsistent with all those solemnities
of life into which she had had premature admission? Therefore the
absence of the youth did not strike her. Miss Catherine was old, and it
was natural she should choose her friends to please herself.




CHAPTER XXVI


‘Now,’ said Miss Catherine, when it approached the end of June, and
Edinburgh, like other towns, began to empty itself of its prisoners.
‘Now, minister, you may go your ways, and settle down in your parish. I
am going to take her home.’

‘Home!’ said Mr. Lothian; ‘to the Glebe?’ and his countenance fell. For,
to come and go a dozen times a day to Miss Catherine’s lodgings, and to
see her young companion constantly under the shelter of her presence,
without awaking Isabel’s susceptibilities or seeming to seek her, was
very different from going to visit her in her own cottage, putting her
on her guard by the very act.

‘Yes, to the Glebe!’ said Miss Catherine. ‘Don’t look at me as if you
thought me an old witch. Maybe I am an old witch. No, she is not coming
to my house. I mean to plunge her back into her own--to Jean Campbell
and the bairns; and then if you cannot make something of the situation,
it will be your fault and not mine.’

Mr. Lothian paused, and mused over this last wile. He smiled a little,
and then he shook his head. ‘It might be good for me,’ he said; ‘but it
would be cruel to her.’

‘Go away with your nonsense!’ said Miss Catherine; ‘I hope I know the
world and what I’m speaking of; but men are fools. I have given her all
the change that was good for her here, and she has had just a taste of
what life is, a flavour to linger in her thoughts. And now she shall
know the cold plunge of the home-coming. Do you think I don’t know it
will give her pain? But how can I help that? It will show her what she
wants, and where she is to get it; and if she does not make up her mind
that it is to be found in the Manse parlour, I tell you again it will be
your fault and not mine.’

‘My bonnie young darling!’ said the minister, moved to unusual
tenderness; ‘but I feel as if we were cheating her, conspiring and
taking advantage of her innocence. If it could be done at less cost----
’

‘Go away and mind your own affairs,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘leave Isabel
to me. Am not I seeking her good? and must I hesitate because my physic
has an ill taste? Not I. Go home with your scruples and see what you’ll
make of it. And you need not take advantage of my work if you have any
objections. It’s in your own hand.’

Upon which the minister went away, shaking his head more and more. ‘You
know my scruples will yield but too soon if Isabel is the price held out
before me,’ he said. And he obeyed his general and went away; but
foolishly freighted himself in the very teeth of Miss Catherine’s plans,
with everything he could think of to lessen the dreariness and change
the aspect of the Glebe Cottage. He sent a great box before him when he
arrived at Loch Diarmid, which was on Saturday; and on the Monday he
hastened up to the cottage, and unpacked the case with his own hands,
and took from it pictures and bookshelves, and books to fill them, ‘a
whole plenishing,’ as it appeared to Jean. ‘What is this all for?’ she
said, looking at the arrivals with a sceptical eye.

‘It is that Isabel may not think too much of the past when she comes
back--that there may be something new to cheer her,’ said the minister,
somewhat struck by a sudden consciousness that his motives were not much
more noble or innocent than those of his ally and fellow-conspirator.
Jean stood and looked on while he hung the pictures and put up the
shelves, very critically, and with her own thoughts.

‘Then Isabel is coming back,’ she said, ‘and I’m glad of it; among all
your grandeur she was like to forget her home. And by all I can see you
mean her to stay, or you would not spend good siller and time fitting up
all this nonsense to please her e’e.’

‘It is to comfort her heart, if that may be,’ said the minister; ‘that
coming back may not be more than she can bear.’

Jean was offended, and tossed her head with an impatience she did not
attempt to conceal. ‘I’m no one for forgetting them that’s dead and
gone,’ she said, ‘nor changing the place they’ve been in. For my part I
would keep a’ thing the same. It’s like running away from God’s hand, to
run away from the thought of a bereavement. And I would rather mind upon
our Margaret than look at a’ your bonnie pictures; and so, if she’s no
spoilt, would Isabel.’

On the Saturday of Mr. Lothian’s return to Loch Diarmid, Miss Catherine
intimated her intention to Isabel. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘the summer is
wearing on. I would not say a word about it if I did not see how much
better you are. But I think, now that you are able to bear it, we should
be thinking of home.’

And in a moment the chill which the minister had foreseen fell upon
Isabel. It came upon her like a sudden frost, suddenly quenching the
light out of her eyes. She said ‘Yes?’ not so much in acquiescence as
with a sudden wistful question as to when and how this change was to
come.

‘I was thinking of the end of the week,’ said Miss Catherine steadily,
‘if that would be agreeable to you.’

‘Anything would be agreeable to me,’ said Isabel, with a little rush of
tears to her eyes--‘whatever pleases you. It has been so kind, oh! so
kind of you----’

‘You are not to speak to me of kindness,’ said the old lady. ‘It was a
pleasure to myself. But now, God be thanked! you’re well and strong; and
bonnie Loch Diarmid will be in all its beauty. Are you not wearying to
get home?’

‘Oh, yes. I shall be glad----’ faltered Isabel. But it took the colour
from her cheek, and silenced all the little cheerful strain of talk
which by degrees had developed in her. ‘You have stayed away all this
time for me,’ she said, feeling this a subject on which she could more
easily enlarge.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Catherine, without hesitation; ‘I don’t pretend to deny
it, my dear. It has been for you. And I am very glad I came. You are a
different creature. But all the same it will be a great pleasure to get
home.’

Isabel said nothing more. Oh, why was not the minister there to take
her part? He would have read the sudden dullness in her eye, the change
upon her voice. She sat for the rest of the day quenched out, making
attempts to speak now and then, but failing utterly; trying to smile and
to talk as Miss Catherine did about the proposed return. Oh! how the
girl envied Miss Catherine! The old woman was as lonely as the young
one. She had her duties, it was true; but no one to make Loch Diarmid
pleasant to her. And yet how pleased she was to go back to all the
tedium! Was it only because she was old and Isabel young?

‘You’ll feel the change, my dear,’ said Miss Catherine the day after, as
they sat together alone. ‘It will be a trial to you going home.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Isabel, eagerly; and then she made an effort and said,
very low, ‘It will bring everything to my mind--but, then, it was never
out of my mind; it will be as if it had all happened over again----’

‘It would have been the same sooner or later,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘It
has to be got over. And now, I hope, you are able to bear it. And when
you weary, my dear, you can come to me. I will always be glad to see
you--when I have the time.’

‘Thank you,’ said Isabel, feeling her heart sink in her breast. Glad to
see her--when she had time! After having been a mother to her, and her
companion for so long, opening up all her various stores of experience
and knowledge on Isabel’s behalf, feeding her with legend and tale. And
now that was over, too--and Jean Campbell and Jean Campbell’s bairns
were all the companions she should have in the dim future. Oh, for
Margaret! Oh, for the love that was gone! Oh, for---- Isabel knew not
what she would have said. Anything that would have warded off from her
the blank that was about to come.

‘It will not be cheerful for you, Isabel,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘but you
have a stout heart, and you must not forget it is your duty. This has
been very pleasant for the time. It is cheery to see new people and new
places. But home is ay home.’

‘Yes,’ assented Isabel, feeling in her heart that she was the most
abandoned of sinners not to be able to feel any rapture at the thought.

‘And there is no saying when we may have another such holiday,’ said
Miss Catherine, cheerfully. Isabel could make no reply. The full force
of the change rushed upon her. The sounds in the street seemed to grow
melodious as she thought how short a time she would have it in her power
to listen to them. And it seemed to her that her friend was quite
unaware of the tumult which this intimation had raised in her breast.
Had Isabel known how cunningly Miss Catherine had contrived it, how she
had been working up to this climax, and kept the ‘cold plunge’ as her
most effectual weapon, the girl’s mind would have risen up in arms
against such cruelty. Miss Catherine left her seated, melancholy, over
some work, with every line in her face turned downwards, and the new
life gone out of her, and retired to her own room that she might be able
to chuckle unrestrained over her success. ‘She’ll marry him, if he ask
her, in six weeks,’ Miss Catherine said to herself.

Left to herself, Isabel cried--not altogether because she was going
home--because she was so wicked as not to be glad at going home--because
her badness of heart was such that she regretted her holiday life with
all its indulgences. When she returned to the Glebe, should she be able,
she asked herself, to resist the movements of her own feelings, to think
as little of Stapylton as he did of her, to keep from longing and
looking and listening till the suspense brought on another fever? What
should she do to occupy herself? to keep off such a humbling absorption
in one thought? There was but one bright spot in all the monotonous
landscape: the minister would stand by her, whatever happened to her.
Night or day she could trust to his sympathy. He would come to her when
she called him, stand by her, be her support, her counsellor, her guide.
She thought not of him, but of herself, with youth’s spontaneous,
unintentional selfishness. It did not occur to her to think of him. But
so far already Miss Catherine’s spells had wrought.

They arrived at Loch Diarmid at the end of the ensuing week; and were
met, not only by Mr. Lothian and by the carriage and servants from
Lochhead, but also by Jean Campbell, eager to see her charge, and
rapturous over the change in her appearance. From the moment in which
they left the steamer. Miss Catherine began to carry out her remorseless
policy. She kissed Isabel as soon as she had stepped ashore, and took
leave of her.

‘You’ll come and see me, my dear, whenever you have time,’ she said;
‘but you’ve a good long walk to the Glebe, and I will not hinder you
now.’ And Isabel, standing still by her stepmother’s side, waiting till
Jean had arranged to have someone sent after them with the boxes,
watched her friend drive away with an undescribable sinking at her
heart. Miss Catherine compelled the minister to enter the carriage with
her. She pulled him by the sleeve, and whispered in his ear, and
resorted to violent measures to bring him, as she called it, to himself.
‘Go with her now, and you show her her own power, and you’ll spoil
all,’ she said; and the bewildered man yielded. The carriage flashed
away, while Isabel stood, not able to believe her eyes, on the little
pier. The summer evening light was sweet upon the Loch, glancing down
aslant on the braes, which were golden with the setting sun; and the
labourers were going home, and all the soft sounds of repose and
domestic reunion were in the air. Jean was busy with the man on the pier
about the luggage. Since Isabel had left that same spot nearly three
months before, nobody of Jean’s appearance or manners had come near her,
except as an attendant; and it would be difficult to explain the sudden
sense of desertion, the cruel solitude, and mortification and falling
back upon herself, with which the girl looked after her friend.

Her friend! Had it been love for her at all which had moved Miss
Catherine, or only pity, and a disagreeable duty, from which she was
glad to be relieved. Was there anyone in the world who cared for
Isabel--for herself? They had been sorry when she was ill; they had
pitied her. Even the minister--he was gone too, with Miss Catherine,
leaving her in the first moment of her return all by herself. Tears
flooded to Isabel’s eyes, and these were driven back by pride, and
rushed to her heart again, filling it with a silent bitterness beyond
all expression. It was a kind of public affront to her, leaving her
there on the pier to make her way home as she could. Even Jean opened
her eyes when she returned to the spot where her stepdaughter stood
forlorn.

‘They might have taken you with them as far as Lochhead,’ said Jean. ‘Is
that the way your grand friends part with you? And the minister, too! I
canna understand it. They might have taken you with them as far as
Lochhead.’

‘I would rather walk,’ said Isabel, though she had a struggle to
enunciate the words; and then the two took the familiar road and went on
together, as if it were all a dream.

There was a little consolation in the changed aspect of the little
parlour, the engravings on the walls, the little bookshelves, the
volumes the minister had chosen. It would not be _his_ fault that he had
so left her. And for the first time a sense of pleasure and pride in the
watchful, anxious tenderness of her elderly lover came into Isabel’s
mind. At that particular moment she was so forlorn that these marks of
his thought for her came sweet to her heart. It could not be his fault.
As soon as she had taken off her bonnet, she who had come up the road
with such languor, feeling a weariness altogether out of proportion with
the fatigue she had undergone, came eager to look at her new treasures.
He had consulted her about them all, though she had not known why. She
it was who had unwittingly chosen the half-dozen prints which so changed
the aspect of the grey walls. He had remembered exactly what she liked,
what she had said, shy as her opinions on such subjects always were. Her
countenance smoothed out under this influence. Jean, who had been rather
contemptuous of the ‘nonsense,’ followed her about while she examined
everything with anxious eyes. ‘She’s real weel in her health; but oh,
I’m feared she’s changed,’ had been Jean’s first thought as Isabel’s
abstracted looks and indifferent answers to all her news chilled her
warm delight in her stepdaughter’s return. ‘After a’ your grandeur,
you’ll no think much of your ain little house,’ she had even said, with
a perceptible taunt as they entered it. And Isabel’s first step, which
had been to sit down on Margaret’s sofa, and cry her heart out, had,
natural as it was, been a blow to Jean. She had herself become callous
to the associations of the place; and she had taken so much trouble to
set out the tea there, and brighten it for the home-coming. But when
Isabel perceived the change about her, and began to brighten, Jean
brightened too.

‘Eh! if I had but thought you would have cared,’ she said. ‘There’s the
history o’ the Prodigal up in the garret, a’ painted and grand, no like
thae black-and-white things. But I never thought ye would care. Oh, aye,
it was just the minister! and a foolish thing it was for a man of his
years, climbing up on chairs and hammering away like a working man. But
so long as you’re pleased----’

‘Did he do everything himself?’ said Isabel.

‘Oh, ‘deed did he--everything; and would have jumpit into the Loch at
the end, if that would have pleased ye. The man’s just infatuate. I
think shame to see it--at his time of life.’

‘He is not so old,’ said Isabel.

‘Ye’ve gotten to your English the time you’ve been away,’ said Jean;
‘and nae doubt it’s as it should be, for you that’s a lady born--but it
doesna sound so kindly as the auld way. And you’re bonnier than ever;’
she added, walking round her stepdaughter with admiring eyes; ‘and it’s
a pleasure to see a gown that fits like that; and you’ve gotten a new
way of doing your hair; you’re like some of the Miss Campbells that
visited Lochhead, or that English young lady that was living down the
Loch. But eh, my bonnie woman, ye’re no like the Captain’s Isabel.’

‘I don’t know that there is any difference,’ said Isabel, touched in
spite of herself by the tears that rose in her stepmother’s eyes.

‘Nor me,’ said Jean, putting up her apron. ‘I canna tell what it is, but
I see it. Eh, Isabel, I’m an auld fool. I’ve been thinking we might be
real happy, now you kent me better. But I see the Glebe’s nae place for
you now. You’ll no bide long here.’

‘Where should I go to?’ said Isabel, with a little bitterness; ‘no, you
need not be afraid. I am wanted nowhere but in my own house.’

‘You couldna be any place where you would be mair thought of,’ said Jean
wistfully, ‘but you’re no to be angry at Miss Catherine either. It was
want of thought, maybe, or that she took it into her head that you and
me--after being so long parted--would like best to be alone.’

‘Angry! why should I be angry?’ said Isabel. ‘It is not that. I did not
think of Miss Catherine. She has been very kind, and I hope I am
grateful----’

‘You’re her ain kith and kin. I dinna see the call for gratitude,’ said
Jean, with a little heat. ‘And she might have brought ye hame in the
carriage, and nae harm done. I never understand your fine folk. But sit
down, my lamb, and I’ll pour you out your tea, and ye maun try to mind
we would a’ lay down our lives for you, and that you’re in your ain
house, and can do as you please.’

Perhaps there was a forlorn satisfaction in that, after all. But when
Isabel crept to bed, a few hours later, without any visit from the
minister, without any communication from Lochhead, her heart was far
from light. She wept in the dark when she laid herself down in her own
little bed. It had been a dream, that was all; and now she had come
back, and was no longer of consequence to anyone--a Miss Diarmid,
companion of Miss Catherine, and favourite of society no longer; but
only the Captain’s Isabel, too lowly for the lairds, too high for the
peasants. Visions came across her mind of the scenes she had lately
taken a part in, of the smiles that had been bestowed upon her, of the
interest with which her simple words had been listened to; and now no
smiles, no flattering tribute of admiring looks, were to be hers. Miss
Catherine had put her back decisively into her own place; and the
minister--even the minister! Yes, he was very good to her; he had given
her books and pictures to amuse her, as if she had been a solitary
child. It was the last little mark, no doubt, of the interest in her
which she had attributed to another feeling. But why should Mr. Lothian
care for her? Why should Miss Catherine care for her? They had been very
kind to her, which is quite a different matter. They had cured her of
her illness, and done a great deal to improve her; and now they had put
her back softly, but firmly, at once into her own place. No doubt it was
best, Isabel thought, turning her face to the wall, that she should know
at once how it was to be; but yet it was a strange downfall--and very
hard to bear.

She did not go to church on the following Sunday, pleading her fatigue;
and with an unexpressed hope that Miss Catherine would have sent to take
her along with herself; but Miss Catherine took no notice. She made the
proper inquiries of Jean, and was sorry to hear Isabel was tired; but
that was all. Mortification, anger, and disappointed affection surged up
all together in poor Isabel’s mind. One of those forlorn days, with her
veil over her face, she made her way, by the most unfrequented paths she
could think of, to her sister’s grave. It was in a corner of the
churchyard, out of the way of passers-by; and Isabel threw herself down
by it and clasped her arms round the white stone in all the abandonment
of her immediate pain, though that pain was not primarily called forth
by the loss of Margaret. After she had wept out all her tears, she still
retained her position, her soft arms wound about the stone, clinging to
it as she might have clung to her sister, her head leaning against it,
her dilated, tear-worn eyes gazing sadly into the air at their full
strain, though she saw nothing.

She was watched, though she did not know that anyone was near. Mr.
Lothian had yielded against his will to Miss Catherine’s peremptory
counsels, but he had kept upon the watch wherever Isabel went, finding
out her movements by that strange mesmerism of sympathy which conveys
our secrets through the air. He had seen her to the grave, though she
had not seen him. And when her tears were over, and she sank down into
this melancholy embrace of all that was left to her, the man’s heart
could bear it no longer. She whom he could scarcely refrain from taking
to his protecting arms when she felt but little need of him, how could
he stand by and see her clinging to the cold gravestone as to her only
refuge? Isabel was too much absorbed, too hopeless of any external
consolation, to hear the rustle through the grass as he came to her. He
had fallen upon his knees by her side before she roused herself to turn
those wistful, strained eyes to him. And then all considerations of what
he might or might not do had been driven out of his mind. He put his
arms tenderly round her, not even thinking of love, thinking of nothing
but her need. ‘My bonnie darling!’ he said with a sob, ‘my precious
Isabel! It’s the living you must come to, and not the dead, my dear! my
dear!’

‘I have nothing but Margaret in the world,’ said the girl, with sudden,
sharp anguish, the fountain of her tears once more opened by this
unexpected tenderness. She thought as little of love or lovemaking as he
did in the sudden flooding of his heart. Nor was Isabel conscious how he
drew her away from the chill stone to his own breast, and held her,
letting fall actual tears over her as he had not done twice in his life
before.

‘No, no; not there!’ he said, unconscious of his own words, holding her
close to him, clasping her fast, and thinking, as men so seldom think,
not of himself, but of her. It did not even occur to him how sweet it
was to appropriate her thus to himself. It was her want, her absolute
need of him, her self-abandonment which he could not bear. ‘Here, my
darling,’ the man murmured, with a pathetic abnegation of his own
feelings, ‘lean here;’ and so held her upon his bosom, schooling himself
to be--if need were--her father instead of her lover--anything to
comfort her in the moment of her weakness. When Isabel came to herself,
he was gazing upon her, as she leant on his shoulder, as if from an
unapproachable distance. She was in his arms, and yet his eyes rested on
her with wistful reverence, as though she had been miles away.

‘I did not mean to be so weak and so foolish,’ she said, gathering
herself away from him with a vivid blush. ‘I thought I was--alone--I
thought----’

‘You thought you had nothing in the world but her that is gone,’ said
the minister. ‘Isabel! and yet you know who is the light of my eyes, and
the desire of my heart?’

She leant her hand again upon the stone, her tears dried, her heart
beating, and visibly a crisis before her, which must affect her whole
life.

‘I am old enough to be your father,’ he said, with his voice trembling.
‘I never forget that. I’ve seen you grow up bonnie and bright, and loved
you more year after year. And now I feel as if I were taking an
advantage of my bonnie darling. Isabel, if your life were bright and
full of love it would be different. But you are alone. And never man on
earth could love you dearer than I do. Will you let me take care of you,
my darling?’ he cried, and took her hands and gazed into her face. ‘Will
you come to my house and make it glad? I’ll be young for my Isabel!’
said the minister, with tears in his eyes. And the virgin heart within
him came to his face and chased away the years as if by magic. He was
kneeling, though he was not aware of it; and his eyes and every line in
his countenance were pleading more eloquently than words. But Isabel, in
whose heart two rival forces were struggling, was too much agitated and
blinded by her own feelings to see.

‘Oh, Mr. Lothian, let me go home!’ she cried, stumbling to her feet.
‘How can I think of this--how can I answer you here?’

‘You shall answer me where you please,’ he cried, rising with her, and
supporting her with his arms. ‘When you please and where you please, my
darling! But it is here of all places that I want you to know--Isabel,
you _know_?--that there is one that loves you above life, above
happiness--more than words can say.’

She turned to him for one moment, and gave a sudden, tearful look at his
agitated face. ‘I know, I know!’ she cried. ‘Oh, let me go home, now!’

And he drew her hand within his arm, and took her home, saying not
another word. All was said that could be said. It was for her to decide
now.




CHAPTER XXVII


Yet the minister said one more word as he left his love at her own door.
He had been debating the question with himself as they crossed the
braes, whether he should leave it to her to answer him when she pleased
and where she pleased, as he at first said. He took her to her own door
without a word more upon this subject of which his heart was full; but
ere he left her, he paused a moment, holding her hand in his. ‘Isabel,’
he said, but without looking at her, ‘if I come to-morrow will you give
me my answer?’

Isabel made no reply. She gave him an anxious, timid look, and withdrew
her hand, yet lingered upon the threshold as if there still might be
something to say.

‘I will come to-morrow for my answer,’ he repeated in a more decided
tone. And then the cottage-door closed on her, and he went away.

‘Eh, is the minister no coming in?’ said Jean Campbell. ‘Pity me,
Isabel, what have ye done to him--him that was for ever in this house,
and now he never enters the door?’

‘I have done nothing to him,’ said Isabel. ‘What should I do to him? I
have nothing in my power.’

‘Oh, lassie, speak the truth!’ said Jean. ‘You ken weel, and a’ the Loch
kens, that you have mair power over him than kith and kin--aye, or the
very Presbytery itself. But you’re that perverse, ye’ll listen to
nobody; and I doubt but ye’ve been unkind to him, or gibed at him, puir
man! and he has nae fault that I ken of but his years.’

‘I don’t think he is very old,’ said Isabel, half under her breath; and
she went away into the little parlour which he had decorated for her,
and sat down by the window, all alone, without even taking off her
bonnet. Never before in her life had she been conscious of having
anything so important to think about. Thinking had nothing to do with
the matter when Stapylton was concerned. It was nothing but a struggle
then between her love and grief--between the lover’s eager wishes on one
hand, and all the tender decorums of life, all the claims of the past,
on the other. She had struggled, but she had not required to think. But
now there had come such an occasion for thought as she had never before
known. The question was not one of inclination or any such urgent motive
for or against as should have settled it for her, without loss of time;
on the contrary, it was of the very nature of those questions which
demand the clearest thought. Love, as she had apprehended it once, had
floated altogether away, she told herself, out of her life. Of that
there was to be no more question, either then or for ever; but yet life
would not end because it had been thus divested of its highest beauty.
And Isabel knew she was young, and felt that she had a long existence
before her. Was she to do nothing for the comfort of that
existence--nothing to win it out of the mists and dreams? She sat down
breathless, her heart heaving with the agitation through which she had
lately passed, her nature all astir and moved by a hundred questionings.
She did not love Mr. Lothian. Love was over for her--gone out of her
life like a tale that is told; but life had to continue all the same:
and what kind of life?

Then she did what, in the circumstances, was a strange thing to do. She
went to her room, and took out of the locked drawer, the only one she
possessed, Stapylton’s letter, which had lain there for months. But she
could not read it there, nor even in the parlour where there were so
many signs of the one love and none of the other. She went out, for she
was still in her walking dress, carrying the letter in her hand. No, she
could not seat herself under the birch-tree on the hill and read it
there--the spell of its associations would have _been too_ strong; the
very air, the bees among the heather, the rustling of the branches,
would have spoken to her of him who had met her so often on that spot.
Isabel hesitated for a moment in doubt, and then she crossed the road
and ascended the hill opposite the cottage. The place she sought had
already grown to be a sacred spot to all the country-side. The burn
still ran trickling by, though the sweet thoughts that once accompanied
it were still; the rowan hung out its odorous blossoms over the grassy
seat. It was Margaret’s little oratory to which her sister went to
think over her fate.

And there she read Stapylton’s letter over again. Her own mind had
advanced, her manners had changed since she read it last. She had grown
used to the delicate, ever thoughtful tenderness of a man who not only
loved her, but was full of old-world, chivalrous respect for her
womanhood and her youth. Her eyes flashed, her whole heart revolted now,
as she read this letter. When she had come to the end she cast it from
her like a reptile, and clasped her hands over her face with a sudden
thrill of shame that blazed over her like fire. She was ashamed of
having inspired, of having received, of having ever reconciled herself
to such an address. What could he have thought of her to write to her
so?--how could he have dared? Isabel did not know how much her own
estimation of herself, and the world, had changed since she read it
first. It wrung from her a moaning cry of injury and self-disgust. To
think that she should have borne it--that she should have spent her
tenderest thoughts on a man who was so confident of his power over her,
so insulting in his security! The letter lay white on the grass, and the
breeze caught it, turned it contemptuously over, and tossed it to the
edge of the burn, where it lay dabbling in the soft little current. It
was the first thing that caught Isabel’s eye as she uncovered her face.
No, she could not let it float away on the burn to tell the passers-by
how little respect her first love had felt for her. She caught it up
fiercely and thrust it back into the envelope, as if the paper itself
had harmed her.

Then she went silently home, holding Stapylton’s letter in her hand. She
did not put it even in her pocket as a thing belonging to her; but held
it, wetted by the burn, listlessly in her hand. Yet she put it back once
more into the locked drawer. It was one of her possessions still, no
more to be parted with than any other legacy of her past life. It was
still afternoon, and the broad bright summer sunshine lay over the Loch.
Isabel sat down at her parlour window, listless and alone. She was tired
with her walk, and had ‘no object,’ as her stepmother said, in going out
again. She could not now wander about the braes as she had once done.
There was a heap of work lying on the table, domestic mending and
making, chiefly for herself; but she could not sit down to that silent
occupation at a moment when all the wheels of life were standing still,
with an expectant jar and thrill, to await the least movement of her
finger. She took a book at first; but her own thoughts and her own
situation were more interesting than any book. Then she gazed out,
without well knowing what she saw--but by degrees, her perceptions
quickening, became aware that Miss Catherine’s boat, with its bright
cushions, was gliding out from the beach opposite Lochhead. It was a
boat which could be identified at once from all the coarser forms on the
Loch. There were ladies in it--young ladies, as Isabel felt. The boat
stood out shining on the silvery sunshiny water, with its shadow as
vivid below as was the substance above. That was how life went for the
others--a life within Isabel’s reach, so near that she could touch it
with her finger. It seemed to her that she could hear their voices and
laughter while she sat alone. They were going up Tam-na-hara, the
highest hill on Loch Diarmid, to judge by the direction they were
taking--a merry party, with the sunshine flooding all round them and
their joyful way.

When the boat disappeared, Isabel took up some of the work that lay on
her table. Had it even been work for the children there might have been
some sort of consolation in it; but it was for herself. She seemed to be
shut up in a little round all circling in herself--the grey walls her
only surroundings--this homely household her only sphere. At six Jean
came to the door and called her to tea. The children were seated at
their porridge, Margaret’s chair had been carefully put out of the way,
and Isabel sat down on her stepmother’s other side, to the curious
composite meal. She was not disposed to listen, but Jean was as little
disposed to be silent.

‘Mary’s been complaining of her head,’ she said; ‘I think I’ll no send
her to the school the morn; maybe you would give her a bit lesson,
Isabel, out of one of your books, as you used to do. There’s measles
about the Loch. I dinna like to expose her at the school.’

‘Very well--if she likes,’ said Isabel.

‘Na, we’ll no ask her what _she_ likes. Jamie’s been keepit in again the
day. If I was Mr. Galbraith, I’d find some means of making a callant
work better than ay keeping him in. Losh, I would think shame to be
mastered by a wean! And you, ye muckle haverel, why should I be at a’
the trouble, and Isabel at a’ the expense, keeping ye at the school when
ye learn nothing? Laddie, ye’ve nae ambition. If Mary had been the lad
and you the lass----’

‘I wouldna be a lassie to be the Queen,’ said Jamie in indignation.

‘I can do a’ his lessons better than he can,’ cried little Mary; ‘I
never was keepit in in my life. I’m ay dux, and he’s booby--!’

‘Whisht! whisht! and no quarrel,’ said Jean. ‘There’s company at
Lochhead, Isabel. Nae doubt that’s the reason Miss Catherine has never
been here. But she might have sent for ye when there were young folk
about. I’m no meaning a word against you, my bonnie woman; but you were
ay a hasty bit thing, and strangers dinna ken the warm heart that’s wi’
it. It’s vexed me, the minister no coming in. You’ve been taking
affronts, Isabel, at them; or some of your pridefu’ ways; they were a’ a
great deal mair here in the auld time----’

‘It was for another, and not for me,’ said Isabel, with sudden
humiliation.

‘I’m no saying that,’ said Jean; ‘but onyway there’s a change. I have my
ain pride, though I’m but a cotter’s daughter myself--and you’ve mair
right to it, that are a lady born--but if you’ll no take it amiss,
Isabel, a young lass like you shouldna show it to the like of them.
They’re no used to it. And though you’ve good blood in your veins,
you’re no just the same as Miss Catherine; and it canna be a small thing
that’s turned the minister that he wouldna come in.’

‘There might be other reasons for that,’ said Isabel under her breath.

‘What are ye saying? The man has worshipped the very ground ye trod on
since you were little older than Mary,’ said Jean seriously; ‘I’m no
saying I understand it for my part. He’s aulder than me--and figure me
fashing my head about a young lad! But if he wearies at the last it can
only have been your blame.’

‘I think it would be best not to speak of such things,’ said Isabel,
with some heat, ‘before the bairns.’

‘Maybe you’re right there,’ Jean muttered, after a moment’s pause. And
then she resumed, ‘Mary, you’ll get your seam if there’s nae lessons to
be learned to-night--unless Isabel gives you some of her poetry--and,
Jamie, get you your books. If you’re diligent, maybe Isabel will gie ye
a hand. Poor thing!’ she said to herself, as she turned away to put her
room in order after the meal, ‘it’s the best thing I can do for
her--better than sitting hand idle and no a creature to speak to her. If
she were a lass that could go to service, or even that could stir about
the house. But her that was never brought up to do anything, and a lady
born!’

The next morning, when Isabel was putting her books in order, and wiping
the dust from the shelves he had put up for her, and pleading his cause
to herself, Miss Catherine suddenly appeared at the Glebe. A more
unexpected visitor could scarcely have been, and for the moment Isabel
was disposed to be stately and affronted. Miss Catherine paused, almost
before she spoke, to look round and observe the change in the room. She
shook her head as she kissed Isabel. ‘Poor man!’ she said; ‘poor man!
that’s what his wisdom suggested to him. To make your own house
pleasant and cheery when he should have thought of nothing but tempting
you to his.’ This was a sufficient indication of her mission. She sat
down steadily with the air of establishing herself for serious work, and
pointed Isabel to a seat near her. ‘My dear, sit down; I have a great
deal to say to you,’ she said; and the girl’s impatient temper fired at
once.

‘Whatever you have to say, Miss Catherine, it can surely be said while I
am doing my work,’ she said, turning to her books. But she was held by
the glittering eye which her old friend, half-contemptuous of her
petulance, fixed upon her, and after a vain attempt to continue her
occupation, turned round and dropped into the indicated place. ‘You have
not said anything yet,’ said Isabel, but with a feeling that already she
was having the worst.

‘I might speak to my housemaid while she was dusting,’ said Miss
Catherine, ‘but not to you, Isabel Diarmid. I have come to ask you but
one question, my dear. Are you going to be a reasonable creature, and
make yourself and an honest man happy? or do you mean to deliver
yourself over to weariness and this do-nothing life?’

‘I have plenty to do,’ said Isabel, startled, but without sufficient
presence of mind to answer anything but the first natural scrap of
self-defence on which she could lay her hand.

‘It is not true, Isabel; you have nothing to do worthy a young woman of
good connections by the mother’s side, as you are. And when you have
better in your power, and a life that is worth your while, and a man
that is fond of you, do you mean to tell me you will throw them all
away?’

‘Miss Catherine,’ said Isabel, almost crying, ‘you have been very kind;
but I don’t know why you should question me like this. At home I am not
so good as you; you don’t care to come to see me or take notice of me.
Why should you take any interest in me now?’

‘Well, you may say it is him I take an interest in,’ said Miss
Catherine, dryly. ‘If you are affronted, Isabel, as you appear to be, I
am come to tell you what will happen if you send him away again as you
did before, and take no courage to look into your own heart. Are you
happy without him? If it comes to be that he will never pass this road
again, never enter this room, nor take more interest in you, will that
be a pleasant ending in your eyes?’

Isabel made no answer; she only turned her head away, with flushed
cheeks and averted looks.

‘For, don’t deceive yourself,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘that would be the
result. He may have been weak, but he has always been able to hope; but
if you say “No” now, there will be no middle course for him. If he puts
himself in your way again, I, for one, will wash my hands of him; and I
will never do anything to throw him in your way. Do you understand what
I mean?’

‘Yes, I understand,’ cried the girl; ‘but if you think--if you think--I
am to be threatened----! Miss Catherine, you have been very kind; but
you are not my mother, or my near friend, to meddle with me now.’

‘But I _will_ meddle,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘and for your good. Will you
part with him and me, and all that is best near you, for a dream--a
delusion--a fancy of your bit foolish heart? Or will you accept a happy
life and a good man, and all that heart can desire, when Providence
offers them to you, Isabel?--that is what I have come to ask. And I’ll
not go till I get my answer. I was fond of your mother, and fond of
Margaret, and I am fond of you,’ said the old lady, with softening eyes.
‘My dear, I would give a good year of my life to see you so safe landed.
They are gone that would have advised you better than me; but I cannot
stand by and let you throw your life away. It would be a happy, good
life. You would be like the apple of his eye. He loves you like the men
in books--like the men in your poetry you’re so fond of, him and you. If
I were as young as you, and my life in my own hands again---- But when I
was your age I was a fool; will you be like all the rest of us, and
choose your own dream, and let your life go by?’

‘Were the rest like that?’ said Isabel, suddenly rousing up, with white
lips and troubled eyes, to gaze at her monitor, who had thus changed her
tone all at once.

‘I could tell you stories of that,’ said Miss Catherine, suddenly taking
the girl’s hand into her own, ‘and some day I may. But there is no time
for that now. Isabel, will you think well, and ponder what I say?’

‘I am dizzy with thinking,’ said Isabel, putting her hand to her head
with a certain despair.

‘Then think no more,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘but take what God sends you.
He must not find me here; he would never forgive me. Isabel, me, that
was your mother’s friend, I bid you make that man happy, and not sin
against your own life. He’ll come before I can get away. God bless you,
bairn,’ said Miss Catherine, hurriedly kissing her, ‘and don’t forget
what I say.’




CHAPTER XXVIII


Miss Catherine’s words had scarcely died out of Isabel’s ear when the
minister himself stood at the door.

She was standing where her kinswoman had left her--standing in front of
the window, where the light fell full upon her face and figure, her
hands held softly together, her eyes full of uncertainty and anxious
thought. When Mr. Lothian came in she raised them to him with a dumb
entreaty, which went to his heart. He had come to have an answer to his
love-suit; and she who had to decide it stood gazing at him, praying him
meekly to tell her what to do and what to say!

He came forward at that appeal, and took her hands into his.

‘Isabel,’ he said, with a voice full of emotion, ‘must I leave it over
till another time, and come back when you have made up your mind? My
darling, you are not to make yourself unhappy for me.’

‘Oh, no, no,’ she said, half-sobbing; ‘I cannot tell what to do. Tell me
what to do. It is you that know best.’

And once more she raised her eyes to her lover--humble, beseeching,
asking his counsel. Surely never man was in so strange a dilemma before.
He made a little pause to master himself; he made an effort to throw off
from him his natural interest in his own suit. He looked at her, into
her beseeching eyes, to see her heart through them, if that might be.
His voice sunk to the lowest passionate tones.

‘Isabel,’ he said, clasping her hand so closely that he hurt her, ‘do
you love _him_ still?’

Then there came a cry as of a dumb creature, and big tears rolled up
into her eyes.

‘No!’ she said, gazing at him with those two liquid globes--dark,
unfathomable seas, in which all his skill and wisdom failed. It seemed
to him as if she had, by some craft of nature, veiled the eyes which he
might have divined, with the unshed tears which he could not divine.

‘You only can tell,’ he cried, losing such semblance as he had of
calm--‘you only can tell! Isabel, do you love him still?’

‘No!’ she repeated, with more energy; ‘no, oh, no--never again!’ and let
the tears drop, and looked at him softly, with her eyes unclouded.

‘Then come to me!’ he said, almost with violence, letting her hands fall
and holding out his arms to her.

She paused; a flood of colour rushed over her face, that had been so
pale. Her eyes fell before his. She held out to him the two hands he had
loosed his hold of, and put them into his. It was not such love as he
had dreamed. His heart, that was so young and full of fire, ached with
the pang of the almost disappointment, though it was better to him than
any other satisfaction. She gave herself to him sweetly, gently, with a
soft, virginal calm.

‘Yes,’ she said under her breath, ‘if you will take me--this way--if you
are content----’

‘My dear, my dear, more than content!’ he cried, his heart beating with
love and joy, and disappointment, and mortification, and happiness. She
was so gently acquiescent, so calm, so--resigned--yes, that was the
word; while he was full of all a young man’s fervour and passion. And
yet, at last, she was his, and it was sweet. When he left her he did his
best to school himself in the tumult of his emotions. Was it not always
so? Could one mortal creature ever fully satisfy another at that supreme
moment and junction of two lives? Was there not ever too little or too
much--a failure from the perfect dream, the unspeakable union? But she
was his all the same--to be cherished, cared for, made happy--she who
was so unfriended. About that side of the matter there would be no
doubt; and she would consent to his happiness, acquiesce in it, smile
with soft wonder at his passion. Well, after all, was not that a woman’s
natural part?

Isabel, for her part, was very giddy when it was all over, and felt like
a creature in a dream. When she stood up the light seemed to swim away
from her eyes, and a blackness came over the world. Something sang and
buzzed in her ears; strange colours seemed to creep over the Loch and
prismatic reflections. But yet amid all the bewilderment and confusion
was a sense of comfort that it was settled at last. She had no more need
to question with herself--no effort to make after a decision; a sense of
quiet stole into her soul, the storm was over, and she had reached the
haven.

That was an exciting day at the Glebe. Miss Catherine returned in the
afternoon in the carriage, which was a rare grandeur, and kissed Isabel,
and blessed her. She had gained her purpose, and it was no longer
needful to shut the girl out from her house and her life. As the first
symptom of the great change over, she carried Isabel off in the carriage
to join the visitors at Lochhead; and it was Miss Catherine who
intimated the great news to Jean, who had been much startled and
mystified by the commotion in the house, though without any very clear
idea what it meant. It was an intimation not without its importance to
Jean, and took away her breath; but she received it with a stoical
concealment of her own individual feelings, with a few tears, and a
shower of good wishes. ‘And me that was finding fault with Isabel
because the minister wouldna come in!’ she said, with an unsteady laugh.

Meanwhile Isabel, with her head swimming, had gone back to the other
sphere for which she had sighed, and found herself the object of a
thousand little regards and observations. Miss Catherine, after her
neglect, did not seem able to do enough to show her affection; and ere
long the minister, now no longer her friend and adviser, but her lover
and affianced husband, joined the party. The sight of him had the most
curious effect on Isabel; she was immediately covered, as by a shield,
from Miss Catherine’s too demonstrative satisfaction, from the
overwhelming comments of the others; but for herself her head swam more
than ever, and the solid earth seemed to have grown unsteady under her
feet. She was in a dream; not such a sweet dream as he was walking about
in, his head in the clouds; and not painful either, as one doomed and
going to the sacrifice. It was only confusion--a mist which she could
not penetrate--something which blurred all the outlines and confounded
one object with another. She kept apart, and kept silent, feeling that
if she spoke she would be incoherent, and if she moved might totter. It
was all so new. When she had time to use herself to ‘what had happened,’
things would be different; such, at least, was what she said to herself.

But things were very little different until the wedding took place,
which was a few days after the completion of the year of mourning for
her sister. During the interval she scarcely ever regained her balance.
She was as composed as usual, and took everything with outward calm; but
she did not know what she was doing. The notes of her being were jangled
out of tune--not harshly, but vaguely. The effect upon her was not to
distort, but to dim everything. The world became vague, and all that was
in it. It did not seem to her that she was to begin only a new chapter
of existence, but that a new book, mysterious and strange, lay before
her, beyond the crisis which she slowly approached. And at last the day
came; a September day, early in the month, when the heather had just
died out of bloom, and the crack of the sportsman’s gun was heard on the
hills. There was no church-going procession, no pretty stream of bridal
maidens from the Glebe to the church. The marriage took place in the
little grey parlour, with the decorations in it which the bridegroom had
put up, and with the associations that were so sacred to both. They
stood where Margaret’s sofa had stood, where she had died, and were
made man and wife. And when it was done and had become irrevocable the
bride woke up with a little cry--the mist vanished from her eyes and she
saw things clear--a cloud of interested, smiling faces around her, a man
by her side who was her husband--the new life, no longer a matter of the
future, but present, had begun.

‘Did you speak, my darling?’ said her new husband, drawing her arm
through his, and looking at her with the ineffable satisfaction in his
eyes of a man who had attained all his desires, and reached the summit
of content.

Isabel gazed up at him, attracted and touched in spite of herself by
that wonderful look of happiness, scarcely able to refrain from being
glad for him, notwithstanding the sharp and new impression of reality
which weighed so strangely on herself. ‘I never thought it would come
true,’ she sighed, turning her head away with momentary petulance, and
burst into uncontrollable tears.

The bystanders were too much interested in the bride to notice if any
cloud passed over the minister’s face. Had there been so, it would have
been foolish; for was it not to be expected that a bride the moment she
was married should signalise that wonderful event by the most natural
sign of emotion? It was but what everyone looked for, an almost duty of
her position. The women took her from her husband and kissed and blessed
and cried over her in their turn. ‘And nae mother to support her at sic
a time,’ the humbler wedding-guests said to each other as they stood
about the door. There were two lines of sympathetic gazers all round the
post-chaise when it came to take the bridal pair away; fashion was not
urgent on that point on Loch Diarmid--but Mr. Lothian, with all the
poetry of youth still in him, was eager to carry his love away and have
her all to himself. She was very pale and trembled excessively as she
was led out of her father’s house; but at last she had fully awakened
out of all her dreamings, and felt the force of the change she had made.
And Isabel did not turn from, but to, her husband in that dangerous
crisis of her being. Whatever might happen, she was conscious that he
was her support and comforter. She put her hand into his trustfully, and
went away--not happy as he was, yet at peace. Into the long summer
stretch of life, the existence without passion, without suffering, that
lay before her now all was over; taking farewell--was it for ever?--of
the cottage in which she had been born.




CHAPTER XXIX


The wedding tour was but a short one; and when the snow appeared on the
hills in October, and the early winter began to isolate Loch Diarmid
from the rest of the world, Isabel stood by the Manse window, as she had
pictured herself standing, and looked for her husband coming home. She
had dreamed of it all; and somehow, out of a dream it had come to a
reality, and she found herself in the very position she had imagined,
still somewhat wistful, but no longer sad, or distracted by any of the
doubts of the past. It would be impossible to say how good he was to
her, as good as a good man of the most generous and delicate instincts
could be to a young creature whom he loved with all his heart, and with
a certain touch of compunction and compassion, and a ghost of remorse
mingling in his love. He was not, he knew, the kind of man she should
have married; he was old enough to be her father; and the consciousness
gave to his love a soft delicacy, and reverence, and tenderness, which
are rare in the world. Had she been unreasonable he would have made
himself a very slave to her caprices; but Isabel was not unreasonable.
She was even yet a little timid of expressing her own wishes or
opinions.

The aristocracy of Lochshire was not remarkable for any great
intellectual qualities any more than other rural aristocracies; neither
was it the highest possible school of manners and social grace. But yet
it was a great advance to Isabel of the Glebe Cottage, who had no
training in the ways of the world. She was a lady born, as Jean
Campbell, with pride, had so often asserted; and the gentle blood, or
the gentle mind, or both, asserted themselves. Imperceptibly the change
crept over Isabel. Mr. Lothian was ‘well connected’ in his own person,
and he was well off, having had something to begin upon, and so many
years of frugal bachelor life to provide him with means for the
gratification of his young wife. And Miss Catherine, proud of her
_protégée_ and of the match she had made, superintended Isabel’s
toilette, and watched over her comings and goings. So that the winter
passed away in a pleasant flutter of social occupation, and the new Mrs.
Lothian had such share of _succés_ as is agreeable to a young wife
setting out upon the world.

But yet, on the whole, what she preferred was the long winter nights
when she watched for her husband coming home by the waning twilight, and
sat down with him at the table to which her own hands had added what
decoration was possible. If her eyes did not light up at his approach,
they yet smiled softly on him with that serenity which was so new to
hasty Isabel. She was glad when he liked his dinner, and listened with a
sweet impartial satisfaction while he praised the dishes she had ordered
for him, and sometimes helped to prepare, and her own blooming looks.
She ‘took his kiss sedately,’ not more moved by it than she was by the
whisper into her ear that the tea was ready, of the pretty housemaid,
whom she had known all her life. And then the Dominie would stray in and
deposit his gaunt length in one of the easy chairs by the drawing-room
fire, and the two men would talk of all they knew, and all they had
seen, and all they thought, while she sat working between them, saying
now and then her half-dozen words, listening with all the fresh
curiosity of her age. Her husband would pause now and then to explain to
her some special subject of discourse, and Isabel would listen, smiling,
looking up from her work. At first she had said, ‘Never mind, I like
best to find it out from what you say; I like to hear what Mr. Galbraith
thinks, and what you think, and put them together.’ But Mr. Lothian was
not satisfied with that. If he had a weakness, it was to instruct his
wife, and make her understand everything he was interested in. And he
was a little vexed that he could not persuade her, as he said, ‘to take
a part.’ But that was a slight--a very slight vexation. And Isabel did
not care to take a part. She listened, and she pursued her own thoughts;
and sometimes but half heard the talk, thinking of how to plant a new
flower-bed as spring was coming, or whether little Mary would not be
better for a new frock; or how to arrange the ladies and the gentlemen
at the great dinner-party which she was shortly to give in return for
the civilities of the Loch. Then she would glance at her husband, who
was looking at her with his eyes so full of love. His hair was getting
white, it was true; but then his cheek was still like a rose, and was
set off by the white hair. And Isabel’s eyes dwelt admiringly on the
ruffles which she had hemmed, which she had crimped, and in which she
had placed the little pin she had given him when they were married. It
was not a very valuable ornament. It was a small oblong brooch, set
round with pearls, which she had herself worn with Margaret’s hair in
it, as long as she could remember. Now it held a little curl of her own
intertwined with Margaret’s, and had been placed on a pin to fit it for
its present use. It was the only ornament of the kind the minister ever
wore. And it was Isabel herself who had to put it into the delicate
cambric every morning. He was so particular about his frills. And she
was proud of them, and let no hand touch them but her own.

And when spring came a great idea had developed in Mr. Lothian’s mind.
He had been thinking of it all the time, though he had said nothing. It
was to take his wife to London, to see everything that could be seen, to
go to the theatre, and the opera, and make acquaintance with the big
world. It took away Isabel’s breath when the suggestion was made to her.
Going to London to her was something like what going to Constantinople
would be to a young woman in her position now--only so much more
dazzling and splendid to think of. When Jean Campbell heard of it, it
brought tears of pride to her eyes. ‘Eh, Isabel, my bonnie woman, ye
have a life like a fairy-tale!’ she cried, and such was the effect
produced upon the Loch in general by the news of this wonderful project.

‘His young wife has turned his head,’ said John Macwhirter. ‘There’s nae
fool like an auld fool, especially when there’s a wife in the case.’

‘If it had been in to the Assembly in May, ane could understand,’ said
old Sandy Diarmid, ‘to see the Lord Commissioner and a’ the sights; but
London’s a different story. It would suit him better to save his siller
for the family, when they come.’

‘But I hear there’s nae word of a family,’ said another gossip, ‘and he
has been saving since ever he came to the parish. So long as the
pulpit’s well supplied I see nae harm in’t for my part.’

At the village doors the question was still more hotly discussed.

‘Set her up with her trips to London!’ cried one of the neighbours, ‘and
her only Duncan Diarmid’s daughter, as we a’ ken, and with nae right to
such extravagance.’

‘But by the mother’s side Isabel’s a lady born,’ cried Jenny Spence,
‘and her father was an officer as grand as young Kilcranion, that you
think so much of. When ye marry an auld man ye may well expect mair
consideration at the least. A’ he can do is but little for bonnie
Isabel.’

‘If they were to spend the siller on God’s service it would set them
better--and him a minister,’ said Mary White.

And in higher circles there were a good many smiles and gentle jokes
about the minister’s uxorious fondness. Even Miss Catherine was not
quite sure about such an extravagant notion. But all the criticism did
not affect Mr. Lothian. He had made all his plans, and arranged
everything without regard to the popular babble. ‘I mean my Isabel to
see everything, and have everything I can give her,’ he said. He had
lived in that mysterious world himself when he was young. He had been
tutor to the Marquis, the tutelary deity of the district, who came to
church always when he was on the Loch, and had the minister to dine with
him and showed him every sort of attention. London was no such wonder
and enigma to him as it was to most of his parishioners. And Isabel, for
the first time since her marriage, was moved with an excitement which
almost renewed her impetuosity. The thought of going ‘to England’
stirred up all her dormant faculties for pleasure. She made him tell her
all about it, where they should go; what the Park was like where the
ladies rode; if he was sure it was quite right to go to a theatre--and a
hundred other particulars; and when at last the moment came for setting
out, the young creature almost threw off her wifely gravity and felt
herself a girl again.

They went by sea, which was a somewhat awful experience; but yet, when
she had recovered the first frightful consequences of acquaintance with
the unsteady waters, even the fact of ‘the voyage’ added something to
Isabel’s sense of growing experience and knowledge of life. She walked
about the deck, leaning on her husband’s arm as the steamer went up the
peaceable Thames, quite recovered from all unpleasant sensations, and
full of bright wonder and curiosity. ‘You know everything as if you had
lived here all your life,’ she said, in unfeigned admiration for her
husband’s cleverness, and hung upon him, asking a thousand questions,
pleased with all the novelty about her, proud of his unbounded
information, a sweeter picture he thought than all London besides could
produce.

‘I was here when I was young like you,’ he said, ‘when everything takes
hold of one’s mind--when I did not know I was to be so happy as to bring
my bonnie Isabel. I suppose it was before you were born.’

‘And perhaps you were thinking of some other Isabel,’ she said, looking
up in his face, with the laughing half-jealousy of the wife, a something
more like love and less like simple affection (he thought) than he had
seen in her before.

‘Never,’ he said, bending down over the sweet face that was his own, ‘my
darling, I never loved woman till I saw you. And when I saw you, you
were no woman, but a child. I kept my heart young for you, Isabel.’

She gave him a wondering glance, and then a little flush came over her
face, and she turned to ask him a question about something else which
struck her on the other side of the river. She had not kept her heart
fresh for him. She felt, with a momentary sense of guiltiness, that
they were not equal on that point. But her very thoughts were as
innocently and simply true to him now as if he had been--her father.
Something like this was what Isabel thought, but not with any conscious
sense that her love for her husband should have been different.

She was quite happy standing there with her hand drawn closely within
his arm, proud of him and of everything about him, from his boundless
knowledge down to his spotless ruffles; and felt at the present moment
no need of anything else for the happiness of her life.

And Isabel enjoyed all the sights of London with the same proud
satisfaction. He could tell her about everything, from Westminster and
St. Paul’s down to the old gentlemen riding in the Row, among whom he
pointed out to her the Duke and Sir Robert Peel, and at least a dozen
more, as if he had known them all his life, she said to herself. He was
not so learned in respect to the ladies, it was true. But still to know
so much was a great thing. And then it made his wife so independent. She
had no need to ask, to consult books, to remain in ignorance of
anything. It gave her the sweetest sense of superiority when she met a
young country lady in the Row with her husband who was not so clever as
the minister, and saw them gaze and gape at the notabilities. ‘Mr.
Lothian will tell you who they are,’ said Isabel, proudly. And when her
countrywoman confided to her how little she knew about the places she
had seen, the gratification of the minister’s wife grew stronger and
stronger. ‘Mr. Lothian was here when he was young,’ she said; ‘and I
never need to ask anybody but him--he knows everything.’

‘Here when he was young, indeed!’ young Mrs. Diarmid, of Ardgartan,
exclaimed to her husband, when they parted company. ‘Here as a tutor, I
suppose; but Isabel gives herself as many airs as if he were the Marquis
himself.’

‘Well, at least he was the Marquis’s tutor,’ said young Ardgartan; ‘and
if she is pleased with her old man, it is very lucky for her.’

And the fact was that Isabel was thoroughly pleased with her old man,
and enjoyed her expedition with all her heart. The Marquis asked his old
tutor to dinner, and gave Isabel his arm, and placed her by his side
with much admiration of her sweet looks. ‘I used to know your father,’
he told her, ‘when I was a lad. What an eye he had! and would tire us
all out shooting over the Kilcranion moors.’ This acknowledgment of
Captain Duncan as himself in some way received by the local deities, was
balm to Isabel’s soul, and opened her shy intelligence to the Marquis,
who found her little sayings as piquant as sayings usually are which
fall from pretty lips. And the Marchioness offered Mrs. Lothian her box
at the Opera to Isabel’s great confusion and perplexity. The young
ladies of the house clustered round her, telling her what the music was
to be, and how she would enjoy it, and how much they envied her her
first opera. ‘You will think you are in Heaven,’ cried one enthusiastic
girl. When she left the grand house in Park Lane, with this ecstatic
prospect before her, Isabel felt that her life, as the stepmother had
said, was indeed like a fairy-tale.

‘But is it so nice as they say?’ she asked her husband, as they went
home.

‘To them it is,’ said that man of universal information, ‘for they have
been brought up to it. I am not so sure about you; but you must ask me
no more questions, for I want you to judge of it for yourself.’

And it was with a sense of responsibility that Isabel set out for this
new felicity. She had put on one of her wedding-dresses, the blue one
which her husband loved--and had white flowers in her pretty brown hair.
Her sense of her present judicial position took from her the pretty
girlish excitement into which she had fallen about all the novelties
that surrounded her, and restored that soft dignity of the old man’s
wife, the look of age she had tried to put on when she first realised
Mrs. Lothian’s responsibility. She looked, perhaps, rather more girlish
in this state of importance and seriousness than she did in her livelier
mood. And there was another reason, too, for unusual dignity. Lady Mary
was to go with her under her charge. ‘And I trust to you, Mrs. Lothian,
to take care of her,’ the Marchioness had said, with a sense of the joke
which was far from being shared by Isabel. It was the first time she had
ever acted as chaperone, and her mind was disturbed by the awful
question what she should do if anyone approached the young lady who was
under her charge. ‘Is she not to speak to anyone?--and am I to keep
everybody away?’ she asked her husband, and if possible admired Mr.
Lothian’s knowledge more than ever when he instructed her in her easy
duties. As for Lady Mary herself, she was quite excited by the prospect
of witnessing Isabel’s delight. ‘Oh I wish I were you!’ she cried, ‘I am
_blasée_, you know. I know them all off by heart, and exactly how they
will look, and how Grisi will bring out her notes. But you will think
you are in Heaven.’ And then they all got into the lordly carriage, with
the powdered footmen, and went to this earthly paradise, with no thought
of any evil awaiting them, or harm which could enter there.

There were many opera-glasses directed to the box when Isabel in her
simplicity and pretty dignity, half-matron half-child, took her seat in
it. Lady Mary was no beauty, and the eyes of the world directed
themselves to the fresh, new face with a rustle of curiosity and
interrogation. Isabel gave one glance round her in acknowledgment of the
fine assembly, and the ladies in their pretty dresses, and then turned
her face intent upon the stage. The opera was _Lucia di Lammermoor_. Her
companions both watched her with much more interest than they did the
scene--Lady Mary with delightful expectation at first, then with a shade
of disappointment and surprise: while the minister looked on amused, and
yet conscious of the least little shade of anxiety, lest his wife should
compromise herself by a total want of susceptibility to the
entertainment. Neither of them observed, at first, among the gazers
below and around one pair of opera-glasses, which the owner with a
sudden start had directed full upon the box at the commencement of the
performance, and which remained fixed, held with rigid hands, during the
whole of the first act. When the curtain fell, Isabel drew breath and
heart, her eyes somewhat strained and dilated with the intense gaze she
had been fixing upon the stage.

‘Don’t you feel, then, as if _this_ was all a dream, and _that_ was
true?’ said Lady Mary, who was a musical enthusiast.

‘I don’t know,’ said Isabel. ‘I don’t understand; if I could see what
they all mean.’ She glanced round her and down at the stalls as she
spoke, and there she caught a glimpse of--what was it?--a face, a part
of a face staring up at her, almost hidden by the black circles of the
glasses, but yet with something in its aspect that seemed familiar to
her. ‘Do they always stare like that?’ she said, drawing back with the
sense of having received a shock, though she could not tell how.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Lady Mary, hastily. ‘No one minds--don’t think of that.
But tell me, don’t you feel it--doesn’t it go to your heart?’

‘I think, if there was anything in my heart, I would say it, and not
sing it,’ said Isabel. ‘I think they are all mad. Is she Lucy Ashton?
But Lucy would not have the heart to sing. Oh, how could she sing when
she could scarcely speak?’

‘Oh, don’t you see,’ said Lady Mary, ‘that is just what music is? When
you cannot speak, you can burst out in music. You can go to the piano,
and say everything that is in your heart--you can sing----’

‘Yes,’ said Isabel, softly; ‘Auld Robin Gray, or that Irish song the
poor girl sang when her heart was breaking; but all that music, full of
shakes, and trills, and great bursts like the organ made on purpose--oh,
no; not if her heart was breaking!’

‘But, my dear,’ said the minister, ‘how can you tell? an Italian heart
may break in music?’

‘Perhaps an Italian heart, but not Lucy Ashton’s,’ said Isabel, a wave
of sudden colour passing over her face. How strange it was, out of this
crown of her happy, peaceful existence to look back on the time when she
had first read about Lucy Ashton, and understood. She was an
uninstructed rustic, and had never heard any music in her life before.
This historian says not a word in support of her way of thinking; but
such was her ignorant opinion, out of the depths of her reticent Scotch
heart, in which there lay so deep a sense of every emotion. It was her
ignorance, no doubt, which suggested it. Anyone who had read the ‘Bride
of Lammermoor’ to her, with the very least power of characteristic
representation, could have played on her as on a delicate instrument;
but she did not know how to understand the other form of the poem. It
bewildered her. She was not in Heaven, but in the most curious
artificial sphere. And then, what was that thing--those two black
motionless glasses, fixed upon her from below? Whose was the turn of the
head that seemed to appear to her behind them--the aspect of the
half-seen figure lost among the crowd? She could not tell; but it all
awoke the strangest thrill of uneasiness in her heart.

‘I should like to go home,’ she whispered to her husband. ‘Who is that
always staring? And the music makes me dizzy. I should like to go home.’

‘Staring, my darling! There are so many people staring,’ said Mr.
Lothian; ‘and I am not surprised,’ he added, looking down upon her with
fond admiration. The speech and the movement brought him forward to the
front of the box. He took no notice of anything else, having his whole
attention fixed upon his wife; but she saw a sudden movement below, and
the direction of the opera-glasses change a little, as if the gaze was
turned on her husband. The sensation to her was as if some dangerous
being in a mask were watching them. And everything was so unreal--those
people on the stage going through what was supposed to be the business
of life in music, and the spectators periodically rousing themselves to
a little paroxysm of frenzy, according to Isabel’s opinion. She had
never seen anything so unreal and so strange; and it might be some enemy
who was watching them for anything she knew----

But she sat out the performance bravely, trying to conceal her first
impressions, now and then carried away by a splendid outburst of
melody, but still keeping close to her text that Lucy Ashton could not
have had the heart. ‘How could she have remembered to sing like that, if
her heart was breaking?’ said Isabel; and there was a painful pang in
her own which she could not explain. She seemed to see those glasses
before her even on the way out, gazing at her from behind a pillar. They
were before her eyes all the way home, and withdrew her attention even
from Lady Mary’s lamentations over her want of musical taste. ‘But I see
it is because you are not used to it,’ Lady Mary said at last. ‘Half a
dozen more evenings would make you think so differently. Oh, Mr.
Lothian, stay a little longer, and let us educate your wife!’

‘It would take a longer time than we can spare,’ said the minister, only
half pleased with the suggestion; and Isabel gave a little shudder in
her corner. She was thinking of that opera-glass, and of the high crest
of hair rising behind it, and the air of the half-seen figure. Could it
be----? Whom could it be? It was the only unsuccessful attempt at
pleasure she had made since they went to town.




CHAPTER XXX


The Loch was in full beauty when the minister and his wife returned
home. It was a clear, lovely summer night, with stretches of daffodil
sky over the blue hills towards the west, and a pale young moon
glimpsing at herself in the water. The flowers were all bright in the
Manse garden, the villagers nodding pleasant recognition, the Loch all
cheerful with boats skimming like seabirds over the water. ‘This is
worth London twenty times over,’ Mr. Lothian said. ‘Are you glad or
sorry, Isabel, to come home?’

‘Glad,’ she said, standing by his side, looking out well pleased on the
scene she knew so well. ‘But I am glad we went, too. Seeing things makes
people experienced; it is like growing old. But you should not laugh at
everything I say.’

‘It is not at you, my dear,’ said the minister; ‘but do not get old on
my account, my darling. I like my bonnie Isabel to be young.’

‘I should like to be thirty,’ she said, with a soft laugh; ‘then I would
be nearer you.’

‘You could be no nearer me,’ he said, drawing her close to him, ‘my
bonnie darling! Remember always that I could not be happier, Isabel. I
have the desire of my heart.’

Why this little scene should have taken so solemn a tone, neither could
tell. One moment they had laughed, and the very next moment he was
making this little confession of supreme happiness as if for her comfort
when he should be away from her. But he was not going away from her;
neither was there any possibility of estrangement in their future. There
was no passion in Isabel’s mind to make her exacting or difficult. She
held up her soft cheek to him, and he kissed her as if she had been his
daughter.

‘If we were behaving as the people do in your favourite opera,’ said the
minister, ‘we would sing a duet of felicity. My dear, you’ve got a
pretty, sweet little voice. I think you must learn to sing.’

‘Oh, don’t speak of that opera,’ said Isabel; ‘I hated it. The men
singing about everything--even their dinner! And Lucy Ashton----’

‘My dear, it was not Lucy Ashton; it was Lucia di Lammermoor.’

‘I know; but it was meant to be all one,’ said Isabel. ‘Lucy sing like
yon! Oh, they cannot tell what it is to be in despair.’

‘My darling, and how should you know?’ said the minister, looking at her
with his admiring smile.

‘I don’t think I know; but I can divine,’ said Isabel; and her eyes
seemed to deepen so, that her husband gazing into them could not make
out their meaning. But he saw a little shudder, quite slight and
momentary, pass over her. And his first thought was that she must be
ill.

‘Come in,’ he said; ‘it is growing cold. How is it we have twice become
so serious this pleasant night, after coming home?’

‘It is that opera; I never like to think of it,’ said Isabel, and
shivered again, and went in, her husband following. It was very childish
of her; and yet somehow she felt just as she had felt at the opera, as
if someone were watching them--looking at their tranquil life with
unkindly eyes.

Next day, Mr. Lothian stayed at home, going no further than the village
to see the wives and ask after the men; and in the evening came Mr.
Galbraith to resume with delight his long-interrupted ‘cracks.’ Instead
of the fire they sat at the open window, Isabel gliding out and in
cutting flowers, and looking after her garden. ‘There is some comfort in
this--now we have got our pleasant nights back again,’ said the Dominie.
‘You saw many fine things in London, but I’ll be bound you saw nothing
so bonnie as the Loch, and that young moon.’

‘No,’ said Isabel; ‘nothing but streets, and churches, and ladies
riding. Yet I am glad to have gone; now I will never feel ignorant when
you speak. It was as good as jumping ten years.’

‘All her thought is to make herself thirty,’ said the minister, with a
laugh of happiness; ‘but I tell her, Galbraith, I like her best as she
is. Sometimes I think I am too happy,’ he went on as she flitted out
into the garden; ‘I have everything I can desire.’

‘I never knew the feeling myself,’ said the Dominie; ‘but they say it is
of kin to melancholy. No more to wish for. I cannot say I wish for much
myself; but that’s no out of satisfaction, but out of despair.’

‘Despair is a hard word,’ said the minister.

‘Oh, aye; far too hard a word. I’ve not vigour enough left to nourish a
passion. It’s more a sense of the impossibility of any change, and a
kind of content; and, minister, I’m free to acknowledge it--I thought
you were but an old fool, setting your heart on a young thing; but I see
now you were a wise man.’

‘A happy one at least,’ said Mr. Lothian; ‘but it would be harder now to
leave this life than ever it was before.’

‘Well, well, there’s little likelihood,’ said the Dominie, with some
impatience; ‘let us be thankful--you are as likely to live till a
hundred as any man I know.’

But just then Isabel came hastily up and brushed past them almost
running, as if in fear.

‘I thought I saw a man in the garden,’ she said, shedding, for the first
time for ever so long, a few hasty tears.

‘My darling,’ cried the minister, starting up, ‘where?’

‘Oh, down among the trees,’ she said, ‘down there--outside the garden
wall. I saw the branches stir--and I thought----’

‘But, my dear, any man that likes may be on the other side of the wall,’
said her husband: ‘why should that frighten you?’

And then Isabel dried her tears. ‘It was very foolish,’ she said, ‘I
know it might be anybody; but it gave me a fright--as if he were going
to jump over the wall and come in to us here.’

‘And if he had?’ said the minister, smiling--till Isabel smiled too,
seeing the absurdity of her alarm. But she watched anxiously when Mr.
Lothian and the Dominie made the round of the garden. Of course, there
was no man to be seen, and they went in and closed the windows, and
talked very comfortably for an hour before they separated, with no more
interest or solemnity. Mr. Lothian had to attend a meeting of Presbytery
next day. This pleasant evening was the end of his holiday: and such a
holiday as it had been--a poem in his life.

Next morning he rode away from the Manse door, looking, his wife
thought, a very picture of what a man of ‘his years’ ought to be. She
had smoothed down the cambric ruffles in which she took so much interest
with her own hand, and put the gold pin carefully into the clean,
well-starched, daintily-crimped folds. There was not a spot upon him,
nor upon the glossy hide of the horse, which was a recent acquisition,
and, in the opinion of the neighbourhood, ‘too spirity a beast’ for the
minister. ‘I shall be back as soon as I can,’ he said, as he turned from
the door; ‘but I may be obliged to stop and dine somewhere, so don’t be
alarmed, my dear, if I am late.’ And he took off his hat to his darling,
and rode away saluting her as if she had been the Queen. All this
adoration and tender respect had their effect upon Isabel, though she
was not conscious of it. She went in and put away some of the things
from the breakfast-table, the little silver tea-caddy, the pretty
crystal dishes for the butter and jam, things too dainty to be touched
by the hands of the servants, and put the room into more delicate order,
moving about in her summer morning-dress, like a bit of light in the
solid mahogany-furnished dining-room. And then she went and gave her
orders for the dinner, which for that day was to be something which
would not spoil by waiting, and which could be eaten cold on the morrow,
if Mr. Lothian was not back in time. ‘The minister may stop to dine with
the Presbytery,’ his wife said; and lingered a little in the clean,
bright kitchen, hearing some scraps of news from Kirstin, and arranging
about various things that had to be done. ‘If Janet gets her work
finished soon, we might put up the curtains in the spare room, not to
lose the day,’ said the mistress of the Manse, ‘as the minister is
away.’ It was a day of leisure, with no special point in it, a day for
odd little pieces of business, and the sweet silent leisure which breaks
so pleasantly into the routine of a settled life.

It was about dusk in the long summer evening, when, listening for her
husband’s return, and growing a little weary of her solitude, Isabel
heard someone ride past the Manse gate, and a few minutes after the
Dominie came in to tell her that Mr. Lothian had just passed--that he
had been sent for by someone who was sick up towards Kilcranion, but did
not expect to be long. ‘He dined at Maryburgh,’ the Dominie said, ‘and
here’s some parcels he threw to me as he passed. If you’ll put on your
hat, Mrs. Lothian, it’s a bonnie night--we might take a stroll among the
heather, and meet him as he comes home?’

He had called her Mrs. Lothian scrupulously ever since her marriage.
Isabel went out with him, well pleased, into the soft night, which was
musical with the rustle of the trees, and the splash of the water on the
shore, and the voices from the village.

‘But I think it will rain,’ she said, looking up to the sky.

‘And that’s true,’ said the Dominie, turning sharp round, as a sudden
blast, for which he was unprepared, came in his face. Clouds had been
gathering overhead during all the evening, but now it came down all at
once, with an evident intention of continuing for the rest of the night.
They stood for a moment uncertain, hearing, as Isabel long remembered,
the sound of the horse’s hoofs carrying her husband over the hill in the
stillness of the night.

‘And nobody could run after him now with a plaid or a cloak,’ she said,
throwing her gown over her head, as was the fashion of the country, to
shield her from the rain.

‘He would be a clever runner that would make up to them,’ said Mr.
Galbraith; ‘but after sixteen years at Loch Diarmid, a drop or two, more
or less, will do him no harm.’

And then they went back into the dining-room where the lamp was lighted.
The lamp did not give a very brilliant light when there was no fire to
help it, and the room had a dusky look, as rooms will have of summer
evenings after all the light and gladness of the day.

‘I think I will light the fire,’ said Isabel. ‘He’ll be cold, and he
likes to see it. Here,’ she added, with a little pride in her London
experience, ‘it is never too warm for a fire.’

‘All the better,’ said the Dominie, stretching his hands over the
cheerful, crackling blaze, when Isabel had lifted away the ornaments on
the hearth, and set light to the fire, which, in conformity with the
necessities of the climate, was laid ready below. ‘A fire is a kind of
Christian creature, and keeps a lonely man company; but, if I were you,
Mrs. Lothian, considering the long day he’s had, and a wetting at the
end of it, I would have ben the kettle too.’

‘And so I will,’ said Isabel, who was nowise shocked by the suggestion.
The kettle was brought accordingly, and placed on the hob, where the old
man contemplated it with much satisfaction; and she opened her press,
and brought out the silver liqueur-stand which had been Mr. Galbraith’s
present to her on her marriage, and the silver sugar-basin, and the
toddy ladles, and all that was necessary. She was so pleased with her
pretty silver things that it was a pleasure to her to have to take them
out, and see them reflecting the light on the table; and the fire began
to brighten up all the dark corners of the room, and to glance upon her
pretty hair, which reflected it, and her ornaments, which made little
gleams about her as she went and came.

‘And a lucky man he is to have such a home-coming,’ the Dominie said,
half to himself, with a growl which he intended for a sigh. And Isabel
smiled without taking any further notice, seeing herself pass in the
glass on the mantelpiece with all the reflections about her, and all the
ruddy light dancing about the room; better than a bachelor-den with two
men over the fire; there could not be much doubt about that. And she
made all her preparations, and had her tea-tray brought in and placed at
one end of the table, and bent her ear through all her activity to hear
her husband come home.

While the entire household was thus engaged, both servants and mistress
preparing for the master’s arrival, it was the Dominie who first noticed
that the little fire they had made for him was beginning to burn out,
and the kettle to puff away all its contents in steam. He made a little
joke over it, and had both renewed, but began to feel uneasy in his
heart. The night had grown very dark all at once, and the rain would
drive right in the horse’s face as it came down the brae. ‘And such a
spirity beast!’ Mr. Galbraith glanced out from the window when Isabel
was not looking, and saw that the Loch had got up in a white foam, and
that the sky was growing blacker and blacker. Just then the sound of the
horse’s hoofs was heard again. It approached, dashing furiously down the
hill, and echoed past the house towards the stable which was at the
back.

‘There he is at last!’ said Isabel cheerfully, not noting in the
easiness of her mind the precipitate gallop, or that there was anything
out of the ordinary in her husband dismounting at the stable-door.

‘It will be for the wet,’ the Dominie said, feeling a sudden pang of
alarm. ‘I’ll go and see, with your permission----’

It seemed to Isabel that he was never coming back, and that her husband
took the most unreasonable time to make his appearance. ‘He’ll be
telling David about the horse,’ she said to herself. ‘He is so
particular to make the poor beast comfortable.’ Then she poked up the
fire to make it blaze, and drew his easy chair to its side. ‘He’ll be
taking off his wet things,’ she went on half-aloud, accounting to
herself for his delay; ‘He’ll be warming himself at the kitchen
fire--but why not here? He’ll have gone upstairs to change.’ At last she
ran out to the door, losing patience. The Dominie met her coming back.
She could not imagine what was the matter with him. If he could have
been drinking--and if there had been time for him to intoxicate
himself--that might have explained the glazed look in his eye, and the
imbecile smile about his lips.

‘It was not him at all,’ said the Dominie, with a jaunty air, which made
her wonder again--‘Could he have taken a dram in the kitchen?’ ‘It was
all a mistake. It was someone riding post-haste to Maryburgh--somebody
from--Kilcranion, I suppose. You do not think the minister would come
down upon us at a breakneck gallop like that?’

‘But it went to the stable-door,’ said Isabel, astonished, but not yet
roused to alarm.

‘No, no, nothing of the kind. Sounds are deceiving in the night. It’s a
man and horse away to Maryburgh. Ye can hear them echoing down the road
now,’ he said, throwing the windows suddenly open. A gust of wind and
rain suddenly came in, and he closed it again hurriedly, with a nervous
haste, which made the identification of any sound impossible. ‘There’s a
storm brewing,’ he said, ‘but we’ll draw to the fire, and be all the
cosier within.’

And with a curious gallantry, which took Isabel entirely by surprise, he
placed a chair by the fire for her, and made her sit down. Then he
resumed his own, and held his hands, which she could see were trembling,
over the blaze. ‘I think I’ll go and look if I can see him,’ he said,
after a moment. ‘Don’t you stir, Mrs. Lothian. It’s no a night for you
to put your bonnie head out of doors. Promise me you’ll no stir!’

Isabel could make no answer in her amaze. And he went away, closing the
door carefully after him, and left her, beginning to hear her heart
beat, and wondering what it could mean. No doubt, had her love been of a
more passionate description, it would have taken fright before now. But
it was so difficult to realise that anything could happen to the
husband-father--the man who had encountered all the risks of country
life unharmed as long as she could remember. She asked herself, what
could be the matter with the Dominie?--and then she wondered what ailed
the Diarmids of Glencorrie, where Mr. Lothian had gone, that they should
have sent for him so late. And then she listened intently in the
silence, till her heart fluttered up in her ears, and she could hear
nothing else. She sat, it seemed to her for a long time, over the fire,
waiting and wondering, and then she heard the kitchen-door open and
shut, and a sound as of voices. By this time alarm had begun to take
possession of her--not terror so much as uneasiness, wonder--a sense
that in this night, which was so dark, and through which the wind began
to howl, something--anything might happen. This only--but it worked
sharply upon Isabel. She sprang up and ran to the door, and out into the
hall. There she caught a glimpse for one moment of her maids, and the
Dominie, and the gardener, all clustered about a drenched figure, with a
face as pale as death, which she recognised to be her stepmother, Jean
Campbell. When they heard her, they fell apart, with looks of fright,
and Mr. Galbraith advanced towards her. He was pale too, white to the
very lips, and pointed to her to go back into the room she had left.

‘My dear,’ he said, taking her hand, leading her in, with gentle force,
‘don’t go there just now. Keep up your courage. He has met with an
accident.’

‘An accident!’ said Isabel, rousing at once, ‘oh, Mr. Galbraith, let
David get out the old gig--that would help him home.’

‘They’re bringing him home, my dear,’ he said, looking at her wistfully.
‘You must keep up your courage; they are coming.’

‘Let me run and see that his room is ready,’ said Isabel, trying to
break from him; ‘he will be wet, and there should be a fire. I like to
see to everything myself. Oh, Mr. Galbraith, let me go and see that his
room is right!’

‘The women are looking to that,’ he said, with a suppressed groan; ‘my
dear, I fear it’s a bad accident. You must summon your courage.’

‘Is he not able to walk?’ said Isabel, her face blanching suddenly as
there came to her through the pauses of the wind sounds as of the tramp
of men approaching. This time the Dominie groaned aloud. He took both
her hands and placed her trembling in the chair she had placed by the
fireside for _him_.

‘Stay still here,’ he said; ‘you must not go out to--agitate him. I will
bring you your stepmother--she will tell you all about it.’ And he
rushed away from her once more, closing the door. Oh, what was it?
Isabel’s brow began to throb, and her heart jumped wildly against her
breast. A bad accident! It would be the new horse that was so ‘spirity.’
Oh, why was she shut in and not to go to him? She could not bear it; she
was the fit person to receive him, whatever had happened. And who but
herself could see that the room was all right and everything in order? A
second time she rose and ran to the door, but once more was met as she
opened it, not this time by the Dominie, but by Jean Campbell, who came
in, all wet and shivering, with such a distraught look in her face as
Isabel had never seen there before.

‘O my bonnie lamb!’ cried Jean, throwing her arms round and detaining
her. ‘No yet, you mustna go yet. O my bonnie woman! You that I thought
so safe and free of all trouble! But it canna be, Isabel--it canna
be--stay here with me.’

‘I will go,’ said Isabel, struggling with her. ‘I will see what is
wrong. If he has hurt himself, he wants me all the more.’

‘He’s feeling nae hurt,’ cried Jean, holding her stepdaughter fast; her
pale face working and her eyes straining. ‘He’s in nae pain--O my bonnie
Isabel!’

‘What do you mean?’ said Isabel, with inward horror, under her breath.

‘O my lamb!’ Jean answered, clasping her in her arms. The young wife
broke out of the embrace with her old petulant impatience. She threw the
door wide open, rushing upon the knowledge of her fate. At the very
moment when she did so, the men had entered the hall moving slowly with
their burden. She stood uttering not a word, like a creature made out of
stone. It was not that she was stupified. She recognised the men
individually one by one, and through her mind there passed the curious
speculation how they could all have been found together at such a time.
And they carried--what? Something all covered over with a great grey
plaid, stretched out upon a broad plank of the wood which had been lying
by the roadside fresh from the sawmill--something which neither moved,
nor groaned, nor betrayed the least uneasiness at the unsteady progress
of its bearers. She gave a cry, as much of wonder as of misery. What was
it? And then Mr. Galbraith tottered to her, staggering like a drunken
man, with tears rolling down his grey ashy cheeks. ‘O my child!’ cried
the old man, taking her into his arms. She looked him piteously in the
face; she could not understand his tears, strange though the sight of
them was. She would believe nothing but words. ‘What is it?’ she cried,
‘what does it mean?’

By degrees it was got into her mind--she never knew how; they did not
tell her he was dead, though they believed so: but that the doctor had
been sent for, and would tell what was to be done. Isabel did not
faint--such an escape from the consciousness of evil was not possible to
her. She retained all her faculties in an acuteness beyond all previous
knowledge.

‘I should be there,’ she said, struggling with them, ‘to do what is
wanted. Let me go--nobody shall nurse him but me.’ But she was stopped
again by the doctor, who had arrived at once, and who put her back,
exchanging a look of pity with the Dominie.

‘You must stay here, Mrs. Lothian,’ he said; ‘I must see him alone, and
I’ll come and tell you.’ When he was gone, Isabel walked about the room
with the fierce impatience of suspense. ‘You’ll no tell what it is,’ she
said, wringing her hands. ‘Oh, tell me what it is. Is it his head or a
leg broken, or what is it? Is it only me that must not know?’

And then Jean came to her and took her in her arms; but all that she
said was, ‘My bonnie woman! my bonnie lamb!’ words that meant nothing.
They waited, it seemed for an hour or more, and then a man’s steps
sounded slowly and solemnly on the stair, and the doctor with a troubled
face looked in. He did not look at Isabel, eagerly as she was
confronting him; but cast an appealing glance over her head at Jean
Campbell. ‘Tell her!’ he said, with agitation in his voice. And then the
young widow knew.

‘God preserve us!’ the men were saying in the passage, ‘two hours ago he
passed, as fine a man as ye could see--and now he’s a heap o’ motionless
clay.’

‘There’s been foul play,’ said John Macwhirter. ‘Ye’ll never tell me but
there’s been foul play.’

‘But wha could have an ill thought to the minister? He hadna an enemy in
the world. Oh, neebors,’ said Andrew White, ‘we’ve lost a God-fearing
man.’

‘It maun have been for robbery,’ said another.

‘There’s nae signs of robbery, except the cambric ruffles a’ torn from
his shirt and the breastpin he ay wore.’

‘That wasna worth much,’ said Macwhirter, ‘but nae doubt the villain was
disturbed and grabbit at the first thing he saw. As ye say, Andrew, he
hadna an enemy in the world.’

This conversation the Dominie overheard--the low bass voices of the men
sounding strangely concentrated and solemn amid the wailing and tears of
the house. Isabel herself had been taken away, capable of no tears as
yet. And there was the cheerful kettle singing and steaming, the fire
blazing, all the preparations upon the table for the return of the
master of the house. And it was thus the minister had come home. The
depths of desolation had opened all at once in the mysterious world, and
swallowed up this house with all its joys and hopes. But a touch and the
whole fairy palace had crumbled into dust and ashes.




CHAPTER XXXI


Nothing had occurred on Loch Diarmid for ages which had made so intense
a sensation in the district as the death of the minister. The whole
country bubbled up and seethed about that one house on the slope--the
Manse, peaceablest of habitations, a few days ago so full of quiet
happiness, but now shrouded in a veil of horror and woe. Was it
accident, or was it murder? At first the opinion of the country-side
inclined strongly in favour of the former supposition. The beast was
‘spirity’--too spirity for a man of Mr. Lothian’s age; and the night was
stormy and dark; and he had not nor could have any enemy--and he was not
robbed. It soon, however, became known that there was an actual witness
of the tragedy, whose deposition would set all doubts at rest.

‘I hope she didna do it hersel,’ said the smith, when the tale was
discussed. ‘I canna understand Jean Campbell being the one to see it.’

The mind of the district was moved with the profoundest longing for
news, however small the scrap might be, that was afforded to it. People
sprang up on every side who had seen a man about whom they did not
recognise as a person known on the Loch. But, then, unfortunately the
differences in their descriptions of him were so great that no
individual likeness could be made out. One declared he was a perfect
giant, another a little hunchback, one that he was dressed like a
gentleman, and another that he was the meanest tramp. Jean Campbell was
the only witness who had anything to tell; and her story, indeed, was
terribly distinct as to the fact, though wanting in every detail that
could identify the criminal. She gave her deposition in the narrative
form which is always congenial to the peasant mind, and held by it
steadily, though her strong, vigorous frame and rude health were almost
worn out by what she had seen.

‘I had been to the mill to ask about my meal,’ said Jean; ‘and then I
thought I would step in at the Manse and just ask for Mrs. Lothian, who
is my stepdaughter. I heard a horse coming in the distance as I came out
on the highroad from the awfu’ lonesome lane that leads to the mill. And
glad I was to hear it. “Here’s company coming,” I said to myself. Ye’ll
maybe no ken the road. There’s a high bank on one side with trees, and
on the other you’re just on the braes, that are whins, and heather, and
naething else. I was walking slow on that side to let the horseman come
up, for it’s an ill bit of the road, and a man’s company is ay canny.
Just afore the horse came up, I was awfu’ frichtened wi’ a rustling on
the bank. It was dark, and ye couldna have seen your hand before you;
but I could see there was somebody among the trees, and what would he be
doing there? I canna think he saw me, for the bank is awful thick with
trees, and I was doun among the whin-bushes, and a’ dark round and
round. The horse came up, galloping as steady as a rock; but, just as it
came to me, there was a blast of branches, and stones and moss came
rumbling down the bank, just before the beast’s very feet. He was a very
spirity beast, as a’ the parish kens--and he backit, and he reared, and
up with his feet in the air, till I was nigh out of my senses with
fright. Then there was a whirr first, and I heard a fa’ and a groan. It
was an awfu’ thud, and the groan was an awfu’ groan. I think he must
have fainted. And I was awfu’ feared myself; but before I could recover
the man was down from the brae. There was a break in the clouds for a
moment, and I could see him come rumbling down the bank.... No, I canna
tell you what like he was. It was just a black shadow on the black
trees. He went up to the one that had fallen, and me, thinking nae evil,
I took heart, and ran up from where I had been among the whins, and went
forward too. The one black spot bent ower the other, as if it had been
to lift him--and me, it was on my lips to say, “Lord bless us! I’m here
too, and we’ll save the poor man!” And then I saw a motion, and heard
it.... Eh, dinna ask me what!--a dull, heavy stroke, and a crack, and
another groan. I gave a cry--if he had killed me the next minute I
couldna have helped it; and the creature started, and made a grasp at
something, and then turned and started a’ round. I gied scream after
scream, no able to stop. I had sunk down among the whins, and he couldna
see me. And then he began to speel the brae as fast as he had come down.
I stood there and cried, and durstna stir. And in a whilie down the lane
came Andrew White and his wife and their laddie, with a lantern. And
then we saw it was the minister. I was near dead with the fright and the
awfu’ feeling myself. For weel I saw he had been murdered there where he
lay. The laddie ran to the village for help, and Andrew’s man came down
from the mill. And when I came to myself, I took my gown over my head,
and ran a’ the way till I got to the Manse.... Me catch the villain! how
could I catch him--and him up like a wild-cat into the wood? Na, I
thought of Isabel--I’m meaning of Mrs. Lothian, his poor young wife. And
that is a’ I can tell you, if ye were to question me till the morn.’

The miller’s testimony corroborated Jean’s. ‘The wife’ had cried upon
him, as he was sitting down to his supper, to come and listen to the
screams from the brae; and Andrew being no coward, and having bowels of
compassion, notwithstanding his gloomy view of religious matters, rushed
down immediately with his wife and ‘the laddie.’ He heard a rustling in
the wood as he passed, but took no notice, not connecting it, he said,
with the accident, and found the minister insensible, and scarcely
breathing. He had had a bad fall from his horse, which of itself Andrew
thought must have been enough to injure him seriously; and there was
besides the fatal blow on the forehead, which had smashed the skull, and
extinguished all consciousness and possibility of life. The testimony of
the doctor was the only other important point in the evidence. He could
not decide whether the other injuries might not have been fatal. That
they were very serious, there was no doubt; but it was the blow which
had killed Mr. Lothian. As to the man who did it, however, no
information could be gathered. He was to Jean but ‘a black shadow’ in
the darkness. She could not even tell what was his height, or dress, or
anything about him.

The world of Loch Diarmid was thus utterly at sea, both as to the
murderer and as to the motive for the crime. The minister had no
enemies; for, to be sure, there was a difference between uttering a
spiteful comment on his conduct in the smithy or ‘at the doors,’ and
murdering him in a lonely road under cover of night. The general
explanation of the torn ruffle was, that the murderer dimly perceived
some ornament on his victim’s breast, and snatched at it before he was
scared by Jean’s cries, which left him no time for further
investigation. The poor little brooch, with its setting of pearls, and
the two curls of hair intertwined, attained notoriety in the papers,
being described elaborately over and over again, in case it should be
offered anywhere for sale. But no clue to the murderer was obtained in
this way. Then the excitement died out; and ‘at the doors,’ and on the
way to church, and in the smithy, and everywhere else where the parish
resorted, all thoughts and criticisms began to centre in the presentee.

But while this gradual softening process acted upon the parish at large,
the Manse was left like a desolate island in the midst of all the life
and sunshine. All at once, mysteriously, as by a stroke of magic, the
light had vanished from it; a sort of dumb horror wrapt the house,
abstracting it from the community of which it had been for so long a
cheerful centre. Grass began to grow on the path from the gate to the
door. Except Miss Catherine and Jean Campbell, who went and came daily,
and messengers with inquiries after Mrs. Lothian, which naturally grew
less and less frequent as time went on, nobody visited the house of
mourning. Not that there was any lack of popular sympathy for the young
widow. There was not a lady in the county who did not make her
appearance at the Manse gates, to offer social consolation, or, at
least, condolences. But Isabel saw nobody. She was stunned.

Thus the winter closed in again upon the hills, wrapping the closed
Manse in all its mists and clouds. While the parish was contending hotly
about the presentee, Isabel shut herself up in her house, which was
still hers until his appointment should be settled, like the ghost of
what she had been. One of the maids was already dismissed, in
preparation for the final breaking up. The gardener had gone some time
before. And only the sorrowful young mistress, with her widow’s cap on
her brown curls, and desolation in her heart, and old Kirstin, who had
been the minister’s housekeeper in old days, dwelt alone in the mournful
Manse.




CHAPTER XXXII


It was a long time after this--almost Christmas--when Isabel’s baby was
born. Even the Glebe Cottage put on a different aspect with the coming
of the new life. The grey parlour, which was so full of memories, the
room in which Margaret had died, in which Isabel had been married, and
which under other circumstances would have been an awful place to return
to, in the renewed and deepened gloom, was all a flutter now with the
white robes, the baby-paraphernalia, all the scraps of lace and heaps of
muslin in which young mothers find so much delight. The place was
metamorphosed and knew itself no longer. It was the centre of a hundred
sweet consultations, such gossiping, in the true sense of the word, as
renews the female soul. Even Miss Catherine was transfigured by the new
event. ‘I have gotten a grandchild in my old age,’ she said with tears
and smiles as she carried little Margaret into the parlour where one of
Mr. Lothian’s old friends stood waiting by the white-covered table to
baptise the fatherless child. It was one of many scenes which were
heart-breaking in their pathos to the bystanders, but did not somehow
bear the same aspect to the principal actor in them. The old clergyman
who performed the ceremony broke down in the midst of it. He was a
grandfather himself, and had not hesitated a year ago to make many a
kindly joke upon Lothian’s infatuation. But the sight of his old
comrade’s child, which would have been the crown of his joy, and which
he had not even been permitted to know of, was more than the good man
could bear. And the Dominie, who was standing by, turned quite round and
leaned his grey head upon the wall, and could not suppress the groan
which came out of his heart. And Miss Catherine and all the women wept
aloud. But Isabel, with her child in her arms, smiled in the midst of
all their tears. Her eyes were wet, which made them all the brighter.
The excitement of the moment in her weak condition had quickened all the
tints of lily and rose in her soft cheeks--the golden life-gleam in her
brown hair shone out under her cap like a concealed crown. And she
smiled upon them all with a certain wonder at their emotion, facing life
and fate and all that could come out of the unknown, tranquil with her
treasure in her arms.

‘Poor thing!’ the Dominie said; ‘poor thing!’ laying one hand on the
mother’s young head, and looking down from his great height upon the
child, his harsh face all working with emotion. He had hard ado not to
weep like the women, and to keep down the climbing sorrow which choked
him, in his throat.

‘Why poor thing?’ said Isabel softly, looking up to him, ‘why poor
thing? She has me.’

‘And you are but a bairn yourself,’ said the Dominie, with his broken
groan.

‘I am her mother,’ said Isabel, ‘who had I but Margaret? and Margaret
was only my sister. And I am young and strong. She has me!’

‘My dear,’ said the old minister, who with all his sympathy could not
let such a speech pass unrebuked, ‘she has her Father in Heaven. She has
the Father of the fatherless. You must not build on your youth and
strength. Have we not all seen what awful change and overturn may happen
in a single day?’

And then Isabel looked up at him with her tear-dilated, smiling eyes. It
was cruel to thrust back upon her at such a moment the terrible tragedy
in which she had such a part. But even that did not discourage the young
mother. Two great tears wrung out of their fountains, as if her heart
had been suddenly grasped by some harsh hand, dropped from her eyes.
Before they fell she had already turned her head with a little start,
that they might not drop upon the child. ‘I’ll live for her,’ she said.
‘Oh I’ll have strength for her--God would never have me leave my baby
alone in the world.’ And then the smile came back--an invincible smile,
not to be quenched by any discouragement. When she was left alone even,
and had no longer that stimulus of self-defence and resistance which
came natural to her character, in the silence she still kept her smile.
There, where Margaret had died--where she herself had stood up in her
white simplicity of maidenhood to be married, she sat by the imperfect
light of the fire with her baby asleep on her knees, and defied all fear
and sorrow. All the frivolous thoughts of youth had died out of her (so
far as she was aware) as much as if she had been Miss Catherine’s age.
No longing for any love beyond the one she possessed was in her heart.
Her sister, and her husband, whom she could scarcely dissociate now the
one from the other, had left her on the way. But did not this make
amends--this which no one could take away, which was altogether her own?

‘Has the lassie no heart?’ said the Dominie, as he attended Miss
Catherine down the brae. His own was sore for his friend. The minister
had been to him a profounder loss than to Isabel; the solace of his
life, his companion, the occupation of those evenings which were all
that remained to him to enjoy in this world, had all gone with Mr.
Lothian. And to think his friend could have thrown away all his love on
an insensible woman who could smile over her baby, and forget him so
soon! ‘This time twelvemonth he was planning where he was to take
her--how he was to please her; and now---- Have women no hearts?’

‘Her heart is full of her child,’ said Miss Catherine, with a touch of
personal compunction, for she, too, had been thinking of the baby, and
not of its father. ‘You forget--she was fond of him, and grateful to
him, but she might have been his daughter. It was not love like--what
was thought of in my day.’

‘Or in mine,’ said the Dominie.

What the two old people thought in the pause that followed, it is not
for us to expound. Surely the world had changed somehow since ‘my day,’
was colder, less real, less true--and life was growing more and more
into such stuff as dreams are made of. But that perhaps was because to
both of them--old unwedded, inexperienced souls, the half of life had
never been any more than a dream.

‘You must not think ill of Isabel,’ said Miss Catherine, after a pause.
‘Until this hope came to her, she was heart-broken enough, poor bairn!
and now she is all for the baby. Had the father been living and well,
she would have forgotten his existence in the presence of that child.’

‘And that’s why I ask,’ said the Dominie, with bitterness: ‘Have women
no hearts?’

‘Some of us,’ said Miss Catherine; and they walked on together along the
head of the Loch without exchanging another word.

But it was not the past which occupied Isabel, as she sat, in the
firelight, with her baby on her knee. It was chiefly a soft respite from
all pains and cares, the sense of ease, and weakness, and repose in the
present. And whether it was feminine insensibility, as the Dominie
thought, or absorption in her new treasure, or the want of any real love
towards her dead husband, certain it is that no longing for him or for
anyone was in her mind. What she had was enough for, and filled her up.
To find herself, a shipwrecked creature, tossed from one woe to another,
finding calm but to lose it again--disappointed, sorrowful, and
bereaved--to have suddenly floated once more into this safe, sure haven,
so warm and still and satisfying and full of hope, was such a wonder and
blessing as silenced all other thoughts. But for the child, what a
desert her life would have been! And with the child, was it not a rich
garden, to be filled with flowers and fruits and everything that makes
existence lovely? Such were her musings, as she sat by the fire, a soft,
weak, helpless woman, tired if she went two or three times across the
little room, but, nevertheless, fearless to confront life and all it
could do to her, no longer languid or discouraged now that she had, not
only herself to care for, but her child.

‘My bonnie woman!’ said Jean, coming in, ‘you mustna sit there and
think. Ye’ve been real brave, and kept up your heart wonderful; but you
mustna think, for her sake as well as your ain.’

‘I am not thinking,’ said Isabel, softly, and for the moment there
sprung up in her a certain wonder at her own insensibility. Was she
really insensible, unfeeling? She was not moved as they expected her to
be. Things that she was encouraged to be brave for, as ‘a trial,’ proved
no trial to her. Was it that her heart had sunk into coldness? And yet
was it not full of love that ran over and filled every crevice of her
being, for the baby on her knee?

‘Tell me, was this your feeling when _they_ were born?’ she said, with a
little movement of her head towards the other part of the house in which
Jean’s children were; ‘that nothing mattered any more--that you could
bear everything and forget what it was to grieve, and work and toil and
never tire--was that your feeling, too?’

‘Eh, I canna mind what was my feeling,’ said Jean, shaking her head,
‘except that I was awfu’ glad it was over. But your father was living,
Isabel, and I had no need to take that thought--and besides, I was
different from you.’

‘Ah, my father was living!’ said Isabel, with a little gasp, stopped
short by the words, although even then she did not apply them to herself
with any feeling that her case was harder than that of her stepmother.
If it was harder it was sweeter, too, for her child was all her own.

‘Awfu’ different from you,’ said Jean; ‘ye can sit still and put a’ your
bit fancies together, you lady-things that are above common folk; but
what I was thinking was, how to get weel and be stirring about the house
to keep a’ right for the Captain, and Margaret, and you. My weans were
what I loved best, I’ll no deny it--but they werena my first thought; I
had to think of _him_, first and the house, and how to please ye a’; and
syne took the wee thing to my breast for a comfort. There was ay the
work that came first--and maybe when a’s done it is the best way.’

‘You think I’m idle,’ said Isabel, with a faint blush, ‘but you shall
see how different it will be. I was thinking we might build something on
to the cottage--another room, or perhaps two. We have plenty now; and by
the time she grows up----’

‘Oh, Isabel, ye’re like a bairn with a new doll: let the poor infant
take a grip of her life before you think of the time when she’ll be
grown up. Ye’ll be for a man to her next.’

‘Oh, no, no man,’ said Isabel, with a little shiver; ‘what should my
baby want with a man? She’ll be mine as I am hers--my only one, all I
have in the world.’

‘You’re little better than two weans together,’ said Jean, looking
pitifully down upon the mother and child and drying her eyes.
Two-and-twenty, that was the girl’s age, with half a century of life
still before her, all its stormier, harder part, the heat of the day and
the burden. Could she go through the world as she thought, with no
wakening of other feelings in her heart--altogether wrapt in this
motherly virginal passion for her child? ‘She’ll be but a young woman
still, when the bairn is twenty,’ said Jean to herself from the eminence
of her own more advanced age. Such a thing was possible as that the
heart thus thrown into one strain should never diverge, nor throb to any
other touch. It was possible. But the woman in her experience sighed
over it, and dried her eyes with her apron, and softly shook her head.




CHAPTER XXXIII


Thus life went on for months over Loch Diarmid. The minister’s dreadful
end had fallen into gentle forgetfulness. Another minister was now the
referee and head and butt of the parish, discussed in the smithy,
criticised ‘at the doors.’ And he and his wife had been asked to dinner
at the neighbouring country-houses, but not with so much success as had
attended the _début_ of Isabel--and had called upon Mrs. Lothian, ‘the
last minister’s widow,’ as the present female incumbent described her,
and had not known very well what to make of the girl in her close cap,
smiling over her baby--with her strange surroundings, and curious
nondescript position. Mrs. Russell, the new minister’s wife, asked with
a good deal of perplexity, ‘Is she a lady? I know she is a great friend
of Miss Catherine. But everybody knows Miss Catherine is very odd. Dined
at the Marquis’s in London, and went to the opera with Lady Mary! I can
scarcely believe that. How could Lady Mary, an unmarried girl, take
anybody to the opera? She does everything for that child herself--no
nurse, nor anything like a nurse; indeed, I am not sure there was any
servant at all. The woman I saw in the kitchen was her stepmother, I
hear. Naturally it is not very pleasant for us to have the widow of Mr.
Russell’s predecessor in such a position. Of course I would like to be
kind to her if I could, but---- And then the way the people speak of
her! For one that calls her Mrs. Lothian, there are half a dozen that
say just Isabel, or Isabel at the Glebe, or the Captain’s Isabel, or
some country name like that. I can tell you it’s very embarrassing for
me.’

This little statement, which was made to Mrs. Campbell of Maryburgh, the
nearest clergywoman of the district, and to Mrs. Diarmid of Ardgartan,
and even to the doctor’s wife in the parish, got into circulation
through the malice or amusement of these ladies, and roused a little
flutter of indignation on Loch Diarmid, where Isabel’s position was so
fully understood, and where she was known beyond all controversy to be a
lady born--whereas of Mrs. Russell herself nobody knew anything. But it
did not disturb the quiet at the Glebe, where Baby Margaret reigned
supreme, shutting out all the outer world with her small presence, her
quick coming smiles, the gradual ‘notice’ she took of the external world
to which she had come, her first recognition of the devoted vassals
about her. Her first little pearly tooth was a greater event than the
Reform Bill, which happened somewhere about that time; and it may well
be supposed that the first time the small princess visibly indicated her
knowledge and preference of her mother was more to Isabel than if the
Queen had called upon her, much less Lady Mary. The cottage was all
absorbed and wrapt up in the child for that first year of her existence.
On the whole, perhaps, it is no great testimony to the female
intelligence, that it can thus permit itself to be swallowed up in
adoring contemplation and tendance of a helpless, speechless infant,
with no intellectual existence at all.

‘I cannot understand you women,’ said the Dominie; ‘if she keeps content
it is more than I can fathom. No--if her heart had been dead like the
hearts of some--but her heart has never been right awakened; and if
there was any word, say of that English lad----’

‘Lord, preserve us!’ cried Miss Catherine, holding up her hands in
dismay; ‘you don’t mean to say, Mr. Galbraith, that we’re threatened
with him back.’

‘I say only what I hear,’ said the Dominie. ‘They were saying in John
Macwhirter’s last night that he had been seen looking at the beasts on
Smeaton’s farm; and he should be well known at Smeaton’s farm, if
anywhere. There’s a fine breed of cattle to be roupit.’

‘Oh, yes, I know all about that,’ said Miss Catherine, who had
endeavoured in vain to secure some of the cattle in question. ‘Archie
Smeaton’s a worldly-minded body, and ay hankering after more siller. But
to bring that lad back--the only man I have any fear of in the world!
No, no, it is you that makes me doubt poor Isabel. With her bairn in her
arms there’s no man in the world she would ever look at; we need not
fear that.’

The Dominie shook his head. ‘It may be nature,’ he said; ‘you should
know better than me--but at three-and-twenty, to give up all your life
to an infant, and never seek more in this world, is what I cannot
comprehend. If her heart was crushed and dead it might be so, but that
is not the case. I am not saying you are right or you are wrong, but
it’s very strange to me.’

‘And for one thing, she must not know,’ said Miss Catherine, with an
anxious look in her face; ‘neither you nor me will say a word to let her
know?’

The Dominie turned away with a grim smile. ‘If that is all your
certainty,’ he said, ‘there’s no such great difference between us.’ They
exchanged a few more anxious words, standing together half-way up the
ascent, and then Miss Catherine continued her walk towards the Glebe.

‘You have heard of something that vexes you,’ said Isabel, when, after
all due court had been paid to the little princess, Miss Catherine sat
wearily down and sank into a kind of abstraction; and then the old lady
roused herself up with a guilty start.

‘Me!--no,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘what could I have that would vex
me?--except just one thing, Isabel, my dear, if you will promise not to
be frightened. There’s measles about. Jenny Spence’s second
youngest--the one that was the baby----’

‘But he’s better,’ said Isabel, breathless. ‘It was last month he was
ill.’

‘You can never say when they’re better,’ said Miss Catherine, solemnly;
‘and I heard they had it up at the toll on the Kilcranion road; and if
one of the Chalmers’ bairns has not the whooping-cough, my ears are not
to be trusted. But you must not be frightened. I was thinking if we were
to take a week or two at the Bridge of Allan----’

‘Oh, my darling!’ Isabel was saying, with her lips on her baby’s cheek,
whom she had seized out of its cradle in her panic. Miss Catherine’s
guilty heart smote her, but she was not a woman to be diverted by a mere
compunction from pursuing what she felt to be the safe way.

‘My dear, you promised me not to take any panic,’ she said; ‘there is no
occasion. You take your walks on the braes, and not through the village;
and Margaret has never been so far all her days as the toll-gate. But
just to keep you easy, and her clear of all danger, I think you and me,
Isabel, might go cannily away to the Bridge of Allan to-morrow. It would
do us both good.’

‘You would not say that, if you thought there was no danger,’ said
Isabel. ‘Oh, what would I do if anything happened to my darling? Should
I take her away to-night?’

‘There is no such hurry as that,’ said Miss Catherine; and then turned
to confront Jean Campbell, whom it was more difficult to blind, and with
whom it had been impossible to have any private communication. ‘We are
going off to the Bridge of Allan,’ she said, with a faint conciliatory
smile; ‘we are just making up our minds all at once. A change would do
Isabel good; and as for the child, babies are always the better for a
change of air.’

‘And there’s measles in the village, and whooping-cough,’ said Isabel,
pressing her baby to her heart.

‘No such thing,’ said Jean. ‘Measles!--Jenny Spence’s bairns had them,
but they’re all better a month ago; and there’s nae kink-cough I’ve
heard of atween this and Maryburgh. Na, if it’s for your pleasure,
that’s different. But eh! dinna tempt Providence by getting into a panic
when there’s nae trouble near.’

‘I think you’re wrong about the kink-cough,’ said Miss Catherine.
‘There’s one of Peter Chalmers’s boys----’

‘He’s had that cough as long as I can mind,’ said Jean. ‘Na, na, my
bonnie woman, dinna you be feared; there’s naething catching in the
parish but I’m sure to hear of it. Put down the bairn, and let her
sleep.’

‘Well, I am of a different opinion,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘and I’m
wearying for a change. I’ll take my maid, Marion, who is very
experienced about bairns, and we’ll start in the morning to-morrow with
the boat. I cannot stay, Isabel, my dear. Keep up a good heart, and the
fine air yonder will make you look like two roses, the baby and you.----
Lord preserve us, woman!’ said Miss Catherine, turning round upon Jean,
to whom she had made a sign to follow her, as soon as they were outside
the door, ‘could ye not see I had a reason? and was making you signs
enough to rouse a whole parish--if she had not been so taken up with the
bairn.’

‘Me!--how could I tell?’ said Jean, surprised; ‘and I couldna find it in
my heart to put her in such trouble, and it no true.’

‘Nonsense about putting her in trouble!’ said Miss Catherine,
energetically. ‘Perhaps you would like better to wring her heart, and
bring in another man to her, and turn all her peace to distress once
more.’

‘What man?’ asked Jean, seizing with instant penetration the point at
question.

‘Yon English lad!’

‘Eh, me!’ said Jean Campbell, ‘blessings on you for a quick thought, and
a quicker act. I heard he had been seen over the hill. I’ll swear it’s
the kink-cough!’ she added, under her breath; and so the bargain was
made.

It was the first night of pain Isabel had spent since her baby was born.
It seemed to her as if she ought to get up and fly away with her through
the darkness, to escape from so terrible a danger; and she went back a
hundred times to the cradle after the little Margaret had been disposed
of for the night to listen to her breathing, and look at her little
rosebud face, and touch her tiny fingers, and make sure she had not
caught anything.

‘The bairn’s as well as ever she was in her life,’ Jean said at last,
with a little impatience, as this process went on.

‘But you said there was whooping-cough about,’ said Isabel.

‘I said it might be,’ said Jean, ‘for anything I ken; but, eh, why do
you think our bairn should get it, and no other bairn a’ the country
round?’

‘Because she is all I have in the world,’ said Isabel, with a sudden
fall out of the soft content in which her life had been wrapped.

Jean did not know of the revolution which that moment made. She saw the
brown eyes open wide and flash in the soft, domestic light, but had no
insight to perceive how Isabel had suddenly stumbled, as it were,
against the limits of her lot, and woke up to see that her happiness was
as a flower on the edge of a precipice, that all her life was
concentrated in this one blossom, against which nature itself, and the
winds and the rains, and the summer heats and the autumn chill, were
ready to rise up. Most mothers have gone through that same sudden gleam
of imagination, and beheld Heaven and earth contending against the child
in whose frail ship of life all their venture of happiness was embarked.
Isabel saw herself standing as on the brink of a more dreadful
destruction than she had ever dreamt of, and her very soul failed within
her. It could not last. Before any new influence came in, the Dominie’s
words had proved themselves, though in a sense different from anything
he understood.

‘Oh, if harm were to come to her!’ cried Isabel, with a sudden, low,
stifled cry.

‘Weel, weel,’ said Jean, in her calm voice, ‘that’s what you’re ay
thinking as soon as ye hae weans. What if everything should gang against
ye? what if trouble should come in a moment, and leave a’ the rest, and
strike yours? Ye mustna gie way to that, Isabel. What if the lift were
to fa’ and smoor the laverocks? No, no, my bonnie woman! It’s no you nor
me that can guard the bairn from whatever’s coming, but just God--if
it’s His will.’

‘And if it were not His will?’ said Isabel, driven from despair to
despair.

‘Then ye would have to submit,’ said Jean, didactic and almost solemn,
‘as you’ve done before. There’s nae striving against God.’

And then silence fell upon the little grey room, in which the fire
flickered cheerfully, and the child slept, and Isabel’s heart beat. It
had been beating so quietly up to this moment, and now what wild throbs
it gave against her breast! Ah, yes! God’s will had to be submitted to,
whatever it was--God’s will, which had carried Margaret, twenty years
old, to her bed in the churchyard, and laid the minister in his blood
beside her. ‘Oh,’ sighed Isabel, ‘to be with them! to have everything
over that must happen! to rest and know that nothing could happen more!’

‘And mony folk would tell ye,’ said Jean, momentarily forgetting her
compact with Miss Catherine, ‘that to run away as soon as ye hear of
trouble was tempting Providence, as if God couldna smite in the
steamboat or the coast, as well as in your ain house. No that I’m of
that way of thinking,’ she added, hastily recollecting herself. ‘This
change will do the bairn good, and it will do you good, and relieve your
mind. Na, Isabel, ye must not take fancies into your head, or think that
things are worse than they are. There’s little Margaret the picture of
health.’

Isabel turned away, and threw herself down noiselessly on her knees by
the side of her child’s cradle. The baby’s breathing was regular and
soft; its hand was thrown up over its head, with the unconscious grace
of infancy; its attitude full of ease and perfect repose.

She lay all the night through with her child breathing sweetly beside
her, debating the question with herself--Should she remain, and put her
fate into God’s hands, and perhaps propitiate Him by such an appearance
of trust? She did not sleep, but lay in the rustling palpable darkness,
sometimes fancying the child’s breathing grew hurried, sometimes that it
stopped altogether, and looking all kinds of horrors in the face. She
rose from her bed in the same uncertainty; and the day was cold, and
Jean wavered, doubting whether such an uncertain and distant danger as
that of the ‘English lad’s’ reappearance was sufficient inducement for
the immediate sacrifice demanded of her.

‘I doubt it’s an east wind,’ Jean said, as she went into Isabel’s room
to call her; ‘I doubt it’s tempting Providence;’ and went about all her
arrangements languidly, with no goodwill in them. ‘I’ll put in all her
warm winter things,’ she said, as she packed the box for them; ‘ye maun
take awfu’ care of cold. Travelling is ay dangerous, and at _her_ age,
the bonnie lamb!’

‘Oh, tell me,’ said Isabel, suddenly throwing her arms round her
stepmother’s neck. ‘I am distracted, thinking one thing and another.
Should I go, or should I stay----?’

Jean paused. She was put on her honour. It was hard to part with the
baby, and allow old Marion, Miss Catherine’s maid, to get her hands upon
it. But she had given her word. And then ‘another man’ was something too
frightful to be contemplated; and Isabel was young, and had once loved
Stapylton, or thought she loved him. It was hard upon her stepmother to
be obliged to decide; but she did so magnanimously for Isabel’s good.

‘It’s no so cold as I thought,’ she said. ‘The wind’s only in the north.
It’s no a warm wind, but it’s no dangerous, like the east; and if you
keep her well and keep her warm, and no trust too much to Marion, who
knows nothing about bairns, no doubt a change of air would do her good.’

And after a while Miss Catherine’s carriage came to the door, and took
the mother and the child away.




CHAPTER XXXIV


Steamboats were novel luxuries in those days; but the West of Scotland
was in the van of such improvements, and Loch Diarmid had secured for
itself one of the earliest of those little fussy agents of civilisation
and trade. The steamboat fretted its silvery bosom daily, opening up the
world to the hill folk, to whom, in former days, the means of descent to
the ordinary level of humanity were difficult. The steamboat fussed its
little way from point to point, touching at the little piers on each
side of the Loch, and at less populous corners approached by boats, the
universal means of communication throughout the district. The Lochhead
was its terminus and starting-point, and the little party from the House
were installed in the best places and received with that rustic Scotch
courtesy which, though not deferential, is so cordial and friendly. Thus
they went gliding along, alive to all the interests around them, when
the steamer slackened its course opposite Brandon and waited for the
ferry-boat. The ladies did not take much notice of the ferry-boat. Their
attention was fully fixed on Ardnamore. It was a homely, old-fashioned,
whitewashed house, standing high on the brae, with a steep green slope
surrounded by trees, cleared in front of it, and the white walls
nestling into the darker heather of the summit above. The gable window
was in a projecting wing, and all the rest of the house was still
closed, which made it more remarkable still to see a human figure there.

‘Can they have come home?’ said Miss Catherine.

‘Oh, no--never that,’ said Isabel; ‘perhaps it is only the housekeeper.
She might be putting the house in order for the fine weather.’

‘Or they may have had sense enough to let it, if they cannot take the
good of it,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘it is a good house. There are--let me
see--five, six, nine bedrooms, if I mind rightly; two in that wing, and
one on the ground-floor, and the rest at the back, looking out on the
hill. And the drawing-room is a pretty room, painted in panels, and all
the length of the house. Oh me--if Magdalene Diarmid could have lived to
see her only son wandering about the world as he is doing----’

‘But that is better than what went before,’ said Isabel. Her eyes had
been fixed on the house, which already began to grow dim in the
distance, as the steamer continued its course. And then she turned her
head, with a little natural sigh, thinking of Ailie and all that had
happened since the two prophets disappeared into the world. She turned
round, thinking of nothing beyond that limited local circle, and,
raising her calm eyes suddenly, all at once encountered another pair,
which were gazing at her. She started so that it seemed to her the very
vessel staggered and thrilled, and gave a low suppressed cry. For the
moment ‘all that had happened,’ and even the child she held in her arms,
grew into a mist round Isabel. The eyes she had so suddenly looked up
into unawares, and which were gazing upon her with extraordinary
intensity, were those of the man she had once loved. Stapylton, from
whom she was, without knowing it, flying, stood within half a dozen
paces of her, on the narrow deck.

Miss Catherine heard the cry, low as it was, and felt the start with
which her companion made this discovery; and turning round, saw, with
feelings indescribable, the man from whose very shadow she was escaping,
standing by her, taking off his hat, and claiming recognition as an
acquaintance. She grew pale, and then crimson, with consternation and
excitement, and in that awful moment ran over all the possibilities in
her mind. Should she land at the next landing-place, thus betraying her
motives to Isabel, and proceed on their journey by some other route?
Should she turn back and go home, now the dreaded meeting had been
accomplished? Should she admit the claims of civility, or refuse to know
him altogether? But Isabel was a free agent. She was not indifferent to
the sight of him. Her start had been sufficiently evident to attract the
attention of any bystander. He must have seen it himself, so near as he
was, and with all his attention fixed upon them. Therefore, if it were
but to shield Isabel, Miss Catherine felt that civility was her only
policy. It cost her an effort to bow her proud old head in answer to his
salutation; but she did it, taking the conversation and all the burdens
of politeness upon herself.

‘It is something quite unexpected seeing you,’ she said, ‘Mr. Stapylton;
are you here on a visit, or have you come to stay?’

‘I am going away,’ he said, half-indicating with his hand a little pile
of luggage. Miss Catherine ventured to take breath. If that were all,
things might not turn out so badly; and she felt able to note his looks,
and the changes that time had wrought in him. The first thing she
observed was, that he was intensely pale, and that he looked at Isabel,
in her mourning-dress, with a trembling about the muscles of his mouth,
and nervous movement of his hands, which betrayed some very strong
feeling. Why should he be moved like that to see her, after abandoning
her, leaving her to be wooed by the minister, showing no sign of
recollection for all these years? And yet the indications of feeling
about him were too marked to be unreal; and Miss Catherine, hard as she
felt it her duty to be, could not but feel a certain womanish compassion
for him in her heart.

‘You can have made but a short stay, since we have heard nothing of
you,’ she said; ‘you were at Archie Smeaton’s, I suppose, over the
hill.’

‘For some little time,’ he said, ‘and I heard from him,’ lowering his
voice, with a glance at Isabel, who had betrayed her recollection of him
only by a slight movement of her head--‘of many things which grieved me
much.’

Was this the old flippant, arrogant, unsympathetic ‘English lad?’ He had
grown much thinner Miss Catherine decided, looking at him. His voice was
subdued; the very lines of his face refined and altered. His aspect,
long ago, had been that of a somewhat surly, self-sufficient youth,
careless of what anybody thought of him, ready to meet reproval half
way; now everything seemed softened, toned down, and improved. Yes,
improved. She could not deny it to herself.

‘Yes,’ she said, hastily, ‘there have been changes; but no doubt you
would hear of the chief of them at the time they happened. We will not
go over an old story. You have been in distress yourself, if I am to
judge by your dress.’

‘Yes,’ he said; ‘my father is dead; but he lingered long after the time
I left the Loch so hurriedly. I was kept in close attendance upon him
for nearly a year. He had a tedious illness. But for that I should have
returned sooner; and, I am sorry to say,’ he added, ‘my position is not
quite so good as I had hoped.’

When he paused, inviting sympathy, Miss Catherine found herself obliged
to show some sign of interest. Isabel had not spoken. She was busy with
the baby, whispering to it, encouraging its play with old Marion, the
maid, who had come to her other side, with a perfect understanding of
the position, ‘to take off her attention.’ But yet Isabel had betrayed
that his affairs were not indifferent to her. At this point she raised
her brown eyes to him with a questioning look, much more significant
than words. It asked, more plainly than her lips could have done, what
it was, and all about it? And then the eyes sank confused--becoming
conscious. All this pantomime Miss Catherine saw and noted with an ache
in her heart.

‘I have been in America this last year, looking about,’ he said. ‘I am
cut off, if not with a shilling, still with a very poor remnant of what
I ought to have had. What with my mother and sisters, and all the
rest--but I cannot expect you to be interested in this,’ he added,
looking at her pointedly, and then at Isabel.

‘I am sorry you’ve been disappointed,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘I hope you
have good prospects now.’

He shrugged his shoulders and then he stretched out his hand for one of
the folding-stools which stood about the deck, and sat down in front of
the little party, commanding it. ‘I am thinking of settling in America,’
he said.

‘I have heard it is a very fine thing to do,’ Miss Catherine answered
with alacrity, ‘for a young man.’

And then there was a pause--Isabel did not even look up this time; but
her absorbed face as she arranged her child’s dress, the nervous twitch
of her fingers, her apparent blank of inattention, told their own tale
to the anxious observer at her elbow. Did he observe it too? He did not
seem to look at Isabel, but--‘it cannot be for me he is coming so close,
and staying so long,’ Miss Catherine said to herself.

‘I had thought of Scotland once,’ he said; ‘I have let my own place; no
chance of keeping that up at present--and if I could hear of a good
farm----’

‘Dear me, I would think that was a poor business for the like of you,’
said Miss Catherine: ‘farming makes no fortunes nowadays. For a young
active man, with no encumbrance, I would say America was the thing.’

‘I suppose it is,’ he said, with a little sigh; and looked at Isabel
with eyes that were almost wistful. She took no notice of him. She
behaved in every respect as Miss Catherine would have had her behave,
had she instructed her previously in the matter, holding up little
Margaret to old Marion, taking share in the play, and when that was no
longer necessary, giving her attention to her baby’s dress, keeping her
eyes and hands and mind occupied. Just as she ought to have behaved, but
yet, in the very perfection of this conduct, there was something which
alarmed her guardian. The calmness was too elaborate, the composure too
carefully put on; after the first start too, and anxious look of her
appealing eyes.

But it was clear there was nothing more to be made of this. He pushed
his seat away from them a little as if owning himself discomfited. ‘And
you are going away?’ he said.

‘Only for a day or so--only--not for long I mean--to pay a visit,’ said
Miss Catherine, feeling the warfare carried into her own country; and
then there was another embarrassed pause. ‘You will excuse us, I am
sure, Mr. Stapylton,’ she went on taking courage. ‘But you see Mrs.
Lothian has scarcely gone at all into society--I mean has seen nobody
since. And you will perceive that here in public, with all these folk
about, and seeing any stranger for the first time----’

‘I understand,’ said Stapylton. The sound of the name, _Mrs. Lothian_,
had given him evidently a painful thrill. He rose to his feet when he
heard it, and grew once more quite pale. Mrs. Lothian! He took off his
hat and withdrew with a delicacy of feeling for which she had not given
him credit. Was it possible that she could have done Stapylton injustice
after all?

And he kept apart as long as they remained together in the steamer. When
they were landing at Maryburgh he did indeed approach for an instant to
make himself of use to them, but without a word or look, so far as she
was aware, which a saint could have censured. She did not hear, it is
true, the five words which somehow dropped into Isabel’s ear when she
found herself standing dizzy and agitated on the pier, ‘I shall see you
again;’ that was all. But Miss Catherine did not hear them, or perhaps
she would have been less softened in respect to Stapylton, and less
satisfied that he was finally got rid of, and to be seen no more.

Isabel was a perplexity to her friend for all the rest of the journey.
Instead of the cheerful stir there had been about her when she started,
she had fallen back upon herself. Her eyes looked heavy, a _sourd_
excitement seemed to hang about her, which her anxious companion could
not explain. It was not the natural thrill of recollection which might
have moved a young woman under such circumstances, she thought, but a
certain suppressed painful tumult of mind to which Miss Catherine had no
clue. But for one thing, she was more absorbed than ever, if that were
possible, in her baby. She scarcely spoke, except to little Margaret, to
whom she pointed out everything, as if the child could understand her,
fidgeting about her dress, fastening and unfastening the wraps round
her, inventing a hundred little occupations to fix her attention to her
child. She would not allow Marion, who had been looking forward to the
delight of assuming the management of the baby, to touch her, but left
Miss Catherine at once on their arrival to put little Margaret to bed.
‘Marion will do that; the bairn knows her,’ said Miss Catherine, but
Isabel only shook her head. ‘No, I cannot part with my baby,’ she said,
and went away burying herself with the child in her own room, where,
after a long interval, she was found hugging it in her arms, having as
yet made no progress in its toilette. Then Miss Catherine began to get
alarmed.

‘My dear,’ she said, ‘the tea is waiting. I came to look at her in her
bed, the darling! You’re thinking of the time we were here before,
Isabel; but you must not give way to your feelings, and such a treasure
in your arms. You must think of the bairn.’

‘And so I do think of her,’ cried Isabel, straining the child so
passionately to her breast that little Margaret, unused to such
violence, began to whimper with fright, and put out her baby arms to
Miss Catherine. Then Isabel’s excitement broke forth in weeping. She
almost thrust the child into Miss Catherine’s arms, and covered her face
with her hands. ‘_She_ turns from me too,’ she cried, with floods of
sudden burning tears. And little Margaret, half for sympathy, out of an
infant’s strange forlorn consciousness of something unusual in the air,
cried too, and the scene altogether became so painful that Miss
Catherine lost heart.

‘I cannot understand you, Isabel,’ she said. ‘There are no memories here
to make you heart-broken like this, and nobody is turning from you that
I know of. I have come away with you myself, though I’ve plenty to do at
home. And there is not one of your friends but would make a sacrifice to
see you happy. What is the matter? You have always been happy with your
baby. Why should you change now?’

‘I have not changed.’ said Isabel, under her breath.

‘I hope not, my dear,’ said Miss Catherine, giving back the child into
her arms. ‘I suppose it is coming out into the world for the first time,
and seeing--strangers; and coming to a new place. I would not wonder,
for my part; but you have ay been so good, and so reasonable and
patient--since _she_ came.’

‘And so I shall be,’ said Isabel, hastily drying her eyes; ‘as long as
she is well, oh, what can harm me? I want nothing but my lamb.’ And then
she began, with a thousand caresses, to undress the little weary
creature, kissing its round limbs and dimples with a kind of passion.
Miss Catherine sat looking on somewhat grimly, not understanding this
outbreak of feeling more than the other, but unable in any way to
connect either Isabel’s tears or her demonstrations of maternal
adoration with that unlucky encounter in the boat. She did not
understand, and she could not sympathise, but sat looking on with that
grim air of observation and criticism which winds an excited mind up to
almost delirium. Isabel finished her task under those severe, yet
kindly eyes, growing more and more agitated and nervous. She was in the
state so common to women, when tears are the only practicable utterance.
Tears, meaningless words in Margaret’s ear, who could soothe but not
understand, and such quietness as she might have had in her own house,
would have composed her after the shock she had received; but Miss
Catherine’s steady presence, restraining the tears and compelling a
certain amount of external self-control, prolonged the inward pain, and
the evening passed like a painful dream.

‘It cannot be the recollections of the place,’ said Miss Catherine to
her maid, when Isabel had escaped to her room, ‘for I cannot recollect
that the poor minister was ever here; and it cannot be any fright about
the bairn. There’s neither measles nor whooping-cough that we know of in
this place.’

‘And neither was there at home,’ said Marion. ‘Oh, mem, it’s no for me
to be the judge--but it’s like flying in the very face of Providence and
tempting God.’

‘I was not asking your advice on the subject,’ said Miss Catherine,
sharply. She was not, indeed, in the way of asking anyone’s advice. But
anger towards her old maid was impossible, and the next moment she had
again begun to discuss the troublesome matter, talking not so much with
Marion as aloud with herself.

‘It’s near a year now,’ she said; ‘poor thing! it would have been hard
for her to have been at that quiet Glebe with nothing to take off her
thoughts the very time it happened. The change will make it pass easier;
the measles and the rest was but an excuse to get her away.’

‘And do you think, mem, she was that fond of the minister?’ said Marion,
with respectful scepticism.

‘She was his wife, woman.’ said her mistress, indignantly; what would
you have more?’

‘But, ah, far more like his daughter,’ said Marion. ‘Nae doubt it was an
awfu’ end; but when it’s no just heart’s love---- Do ye think there
could be onything in the meeting with yon young English lad to-day?’

‘What do you mean by anything?’ said Miss Catherine, sharply.

‘Eh, I wasna setting up my ain puir judgment; but I thought you looked a
wee anxious yourself. And as for Mrs. Lothian, poor lassie, she was
shaking like an aspen leaf----’

‘Marion, I request you’ll speak no more such nonsense to me,’ said Miss
Catherine, with indignation. ‘What is he to her, think ye?--a stranger
that has not been seen in the parish for three or four years?’

‘And that’s true, Miss Catherine,’ said Marion, with a cough expressive
of much doubt and general uncertainty. Her mistress lost her temper, and
immediately fell upon Marion, not on this subject, but on some other
totally unconnected with it; but the experienced handmaiden was in
little doubt as to the real occasion of her wrath. ‘As if I didna ken
the Captain’s Isabel cared more for that lad’s little finger than for
the minister and a’ he could do for her!’ she said to herself, as she
retired to her rest.




CHAPTER XXXV


The visit to the Bridge of Allan was anything but a successful
expedition on the whole. Little Margaret took cold, and had a trifling
illness, which filled her three slaves with trembling terror; and Isabel
was so much disposed, with unconscious superstition, to regard this as
‘a judgment’ on her own distracted thoughts and wavering mind, that she
was not a pleasant companion to Miss Catherine, who, on the other hand,
blamed herself for her over-confidence in her own opinion, for exposing
the child to bodily risk and the mother to temptation. Marion made no
small amount of critical observations to herself behind their backs,
thinking the child’s illness also ‘a judgment.’ ‘Them that flees from
the Lord, the Lord’s hand will find them out,’ said Marion to herself.
And the little party was not a happy one. They remained until after the
anniversary of Mr. Lothian’s murder, of which Miss Catherine was rather
disposed to make a solemnity. Poor Isabel, with her heart still
trembling for her child, and still suffering from the sharp assault of
the new life which had taken her at unawares, found it difficult enough
to force back her thoughts into the channel of the past, and feel all
the grief, the heavy weight of recollection that was expected of her.

After the anniversary was over they went home. It was on a brilliant
June day--a warm, languid, breathless afternoon, when the steamer once
more carried them up Loch Diarmid. Miss Catherine herself looked round
her with an anxious air when she first stepped on board, involuntarily
feeling that _he_ might be there again way-laying them. Isabel did not
look for him, but an excitement which she could not conquer took
possession of her. It seemed to herself that she was coming home to wait
for him, and that, sooner or later, he must come to the place he knew so
well to disturb her life. The Lady of the Manor recognised group after
group, and speculated with Marion, as there was no satisfaction to be
got from Isabel, upon their different errands. ‘There’s John Campbell
has been settling his son in Glasgow,’ she said. ‘I hope it will not
turn the lad’s head. They’re a very pushing family. But I can’t tell
what the smith’s wife should have to do so often in Maryburgh, wasting
her time and spending her siller. Marion, is that Archibald Smeaton I
see there at the other end of the boat? Go and ask him if the queys are
all sold, and what price they brought; and here!--listen--ye can ask
him,’ said Miss Catherine, aside into Marion’s ear, ‘if yon Englishman
is still about the Loch.’

While Marion went upon this commission there was a momentary pause in
Miss Catherine’s talk--partly because Isabel was unresponsive, and
partly because she was anxious as to the answer which might be returned
to the last question. But her eyes were not the less busy scanning the
shores of the Loch with that strange interest which a local notability
takes in every symptom of change that may have become visible in his or
her absence. She gave a sudden exclamation at one point as they went on,
and seized upon Isabel’s arm, forcibly calling her attention.

‘Look at Ardnamore!’ cried Miss Catherine, with a gasp of surprise.
Isabel started and lifted her eyes. The house was all open to the rays
of the setting sun, the very door was standing wide open, and every
appearance of inhabitation was about the place. But what was most
wonderful of all was the apparition of a white figure fully revealed in
the intense light, standing on the green clearing of the lawn. The trees
were all so thick around, and the yellow, slanting sunset shone so full
upon the green slope and the one figure on it, that it was difficult to
pass it without notice. All the windows were lit up with a glow as of
illumination; the green trees were almost reddened by the rays; the
white walls of the house blazed with intensity of tone; and the one
woman stood in the midst of it all, looking out with a certain wistful,
lingering patience in her attitude. Perhaps imagination only conferred
upon this white figure, which was too distant to be seen, the qualities
of expectation and patience. But the whole scene struck the travellers
with a shock of surprise.

‘And no one ever told me a word about it,’ Miss Catherine said, with
indignation. ‘Can he have had the sense to let the house--or can they
have come back? but then who was that?’

‘It was Ailie,’ said Isabel.

‘It was no such thing,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘Ailie, indeed! My dear,
you are thinking of something else, and you have not looked at her. That
is the figure of a gentlewoman. They must have woke up to their
interests at last, and let the house. An English family, I would not
wonder. But even an Englishwoman can have no need to put on a moonstruck
look like that.’

‘You are speaking of my wife,’ said someone at Miss Catherine’s ear.

Like most people who live among their inferiors, she had a way of
expressing her sentiments without any constraint of her voice or
concealment of her opinion. She was a person of importance, and she was
very well aware of the fact; consequently she started, and turned round,
not well pleased, to ask the intruder what he meant by thrusting himself
into private conversation; but was struck dumb, and all the strength
taken out of her for the moment, to find Mr. John himself standing by
her side. Isabel was roused and startled too. It was, indeed, her little
cry of recognition which persuaded Miss Catherine that the apparition
was real and undeniable.

‘John Diarmid!’ she cried, with a voice half choked with wonder and
curiosity; and then made a dead pause, looking at him with a surprise
too great for speech.

‘You must beware how you speak of my wife,’ he said. ‘Yes, we have come
home. I have brought her home--and she is no longer Ailie, but my wife.
If you would be a friend to either of us, you might show an example to
others, and not lead the way to trouble.’

‘Trouble--what trouble?’ said Miss Catherine; ‘and why should I be a
friend to you, John Diarmid, or set anybody an example to do you
pleasure?’

‘Why should you be a foe?’ he said.

And then they both paused, and looked at each other. Mr. John’s
appearance had changed. It was nearly three years since he had left Loch
Diarmid with his wife; and the wild look of passion and excitement which
had marked the prophet had died out of his face. But his appearance was
more strange to homekeeping eyes than it had been even when his face was
lighted up with that glance which was half-insanity. He had acquired the
foreign air which in those days was given by a beard; and his dress,
too, was foreign; and there was about him that indescribable look which
is not English, which has come to be conventionally identified with the
conspirator and revolutionary. He had a great cloak on his arm--a
Spanish cloak capable of being thrown around him after a fashion not
impossible in those days, though now identified with, at the least, a
Byronic hero. His dark face, so much as could be seen of it in the
forest of dark hair and darker beard, was more like that of an Italian
than a Scotchman; his aspect was that of a man full of weighty cares and
responsibilities. The wild inspiration of his supposed mission had gone
from him; but it was not only that he had lost that: something also
there was, which the keen-sighted spectators perceived without
understanding, which he had acquired. He looked at Miss Catherine
without flinching, but with no excitement, meeting her eye calmly, and
repeating what he had already said.

‘Why should you be a foe? I am none to you. You might be a protection to
my wife. Am I to understand that my sins have been such that you will
not forget what is past, and give your countenance to her? It might be a
comfort to her,’ he said with a suppressed sigh.

‘I cannot see what other protection your wife wants, John Diarmid, when
you are here.’

‘But I am not likely to be here,’ he said, quietly. ‘I have many things
on my hands. I am here to-day, and gone to-morrow. Poor thing! she is
alone; her own friends are unlike her now. You saw her standing
there----’

‘You have made a lady of her,’ said Miss Catherine, with a
half-congratulation, half-reproach.

‘I have made her----’ he said, and paused. ‘No, I have made her
nothing; nought of it is my doing. It is another than I that must bear
the blame.’

‘Then there is blame to be borne?’ said Miss Catherine. ‘John Diarmid, I
know nothing about your history since you’ve been away; but if you’ve
been unkind to that poor lass, after making her marry you----’

‘My kinswoman,’ he said, with a faint touch of scorn not distinct enough
to be called a sneer, ‘what I have done to her is of little consequence.
It is God Who has been unkind to her. Don’t start as if I spoke
blasphemy. _She_ can see but one way of working----’

‘Then I suppose,’ said Miss Catherine, vehemently, ‘you’ve given up the
trade of prophet for yourself? I thought as much--and left her, poor
weak thing! to bear the burden. And what is your way of working now?’

‘You have no right to speak to me so,’ said Mr. John. ‘I have given up
no trade; but I see it is by nations and peoples, and not by single men,
that the reformation of the world is to be accomplished. Why should I
explain my views to you? You would not understand me. What I wish is
that you would protect her as a woman and my kinswoman might, when I am
not here to do it.’

‘And why should you not be here to do your duty yourself, John Diarmid?’
said Miss Catherine. ‘You have done her all the honour a man can do a
woman, and it’s your place to stand by her now.’

‘Honour!’ he said, and uttered an impatient, weary sigh. ‘It might have
been better for her had she never come to such honour.’ Isabel, who had
been listening eagerly, though she had not spoken, heard the exclamation
which was muttered between his teeth, and in her hasty heart rebelling
against Miss Catherine’s coldness, felt it was time for her to
interfere.

‘Mr. John,’ she said, ‘I am not just Isabel, as when you knew me--but
Mrs. Lothian. I will go to Ailie, and--take care of her, as much as I
can, while you are away.’

Miss Catherine turned and looked upon her with almost as much
consternation as if it had been Baby Margaret who spoke. And as for Mr.
John, the strangest change came over his face. His large fiery eyes, in
which excitement still lurked, though it was unlike the excitement of
old, softened over with a glimmer as of tears. He went up to her, close
to her, as if it would have given him pleasure to lay his hand on her
head, or her shoulder--‘Is the child yours?’ he said. ‘Tell me its
name.’

‘Margaret,’ said Isabel, under her breath.

‘I thought it was Margaret; God bless her!’ he said, with something
between a sigh and a moan; and then waved his hand and left them
hurriedly, going to the other side of the boat, and turning his face to
the opposite shore. Thus he left them as abruptly as he had come to
them, leaving Isabel’s offer of service totally unanswered. To him as
well as to Miss Catherine it was as if a child had spoken; and Isabel’s
voice was like her sister’s, and the deeper expression which had come
into her face made the fundamental resemblance of the two faces more
striking. It was to John Diarmid as if his dead love herself had risen
up to offer her protection to the woman who was his wife.

‘So, Isabel, you’ve taken Ailie under _your_ protection? You are a
married woman, no doubt,’ said Miss Catherine, with emphatic scorn; ‘but
you’ll not find it an easy task to introduce Mrs. Diarmid of Ardnamore
in the county, you may take my word.’

‘Was I thinking of the county?’ cried Isabel. ‘Oh, Miss Catherine, how
can you be so kind and so cruel? I was thinking of her heart breaking,
and her comfort lost----’

‘Her comfort lost?’ cried Miss Catherine. ‘The comforts of Janet
Macfarlane’s cottage were you thinking of? I am not so high-flown. It is
plenty, I hope, for Ailie to have gained her purpose, and got herself
made lawful mistress of Ardnamore, without exacting protection, which
means introductions, from either you or me.’

‘Oh! you cannot think that was her purpose,’ cried Isabel, fully roused;
but by this time the pier was reached, and Jean Campbell’s anxious face
was visible, looking out for the travellers, and all the familiar
landscape opened before them.

She was very subdued and pensive when she re-entered her own home--the
home which now was her only shelter upon earth--her first, and, as she
thought, her last dwelling-place. Not positively sorrowful, but softly
and full of musings and melancholy thoughts. When the child was put to
bed she went and sat by the window, and watched the lingering night out,
through the long, long twilight, and sweet wavering darkness lit with
stars.

‘You’re sitting in the dark,’ said Jean Campbell, coming in. ‘Eh,
Isabel, my dear, I canna bide to see ye sitting that idle, with nae
light. You’re thinking, and that makes sorrow. I thought you were tired
with your journey and in your bed, which would be a better place.’

‘No, it is not sorrow,’ said Isabel, softly; ‘it is the long day and the
bonnie night. It is not dark yet, and I was doing nothing. Do you think
she is looking well, now you’ve seen her? and you’ve noticed how she has
grown?’

‘I saw the difference before you were out of the boat,’ said Jean. Bless
her--the bonnie lamb! She’s like a rose, and so she has ay been since
the day she came into this world. If ever there was a bairn that brought
a blessing----’

‘You did not tell me when you wrote,’ said Isabel, hastily, ‘that Mr.
John and Ailie had come to Ardnamore.’

Jean had given a perceptible start at the beginning of the sentence, as
if she feared to be questioned; but recovered herself as soon as she
heard these names. ‘I scarcely kent myself,’ she said; ‘I wouldna
believe it till I saw Ailie at the kirk. Eh, she’s changed. Me that
minds what she was----’

‘Does she look--as if she were happy?’ said Isabel, feeling her own
voice flutter like a sigh through the dark.

‘She looks--like a spirit; no like a woman,’ said Jean; ‘ye should have
seen the folk how struck they all were. Some thought she would be giving
herself airs noo she’s come home to her ain, and some thought she would
be currying favour to make folk forget, and some----’

‘Oh, never mind what they thought,’ said Isabel, ‘tell me about
herself.’

‘Eh, Isabel, you would have been struck! She was as white as a woman cut
out of stane, and a’ dressed in white, which was awfu’ strange to see.
She went no to the Ardnamore pew, but to her auld seat, and knelt down
at the very prayers when a’body else was standing. But the strangest of
all was the look in her e’en. You would have thought she had never seen
one that was there in all her life before.’

‘But oh,’ cried Isabel, the tears coming to her eyes, ‘it was not
pride.’

‘No, it wasna pride,’ said Jean; ‘there was some that said it was, but
no one that looked at her close like me. I dinna like to say what I
thought myself. There’s been mad folk in the Ardnamore family for many a
generation; but then Ailie’s no one of the Ardnamore family except by
her marriage, and that wouldna affect her; but----’

‘I am going to see her to-morrow,’ said Isabel.

‘I wouldna if I were you,’ said Jean. ‘Oh, Isabel, my bonnie woman! I
canna bide to see you have any troke with such folk. And there’s
strangers about the parish I’m no fond of. I heard yesterday of a man
that spoke to young Mrs. Diarmid of Ardgartan, and gave her an awfu’
fright, and--unless Miss Catherine would take you in her carriage. And
you in your deep crape! You canna go and pay visits so early. It wouldna
be like you to show so little respect----’

‘You have some reason more than this,’ said Isabel, growing pale in the
darkness, and faltering as she spoke, for her heart began to beat and
took away her voice.

‘Me! what reason could I have?--but just your good, my lamb!’ said Jean,
with nervous volubility; ‘but I’m no for you mixing yourself up with
such folk; and I’m no for you walking about the country-side your lane.
There’s a heap of Irish about, ay coming with thae weary steamers.
You’re no to blame me, Isabel, if I am awfu’ anxious, more anxious in
your condition than if you were a bairn of my own----’

‘But I see you have another reason,’ said Isabel; ‘am I such a bairn or
such a fool that you will not tell me? But I am going to see Ailie
to-morrow, whatever happens; if you like you can come with me yourself.’

‘Na, it’s no my place, as if I were Mrs. Lothian’s equal,’ said Jean,
standing irresolute by the table, tracing a pattern on the carpet with
her foot. Little Margaret woke at the moment, which was a godsend to
her. She had to be patted, and rocked, and sung to, ere she would go to
sleep again. Jean escaped under cover of this interposition; but her
face was full of care when she brought in the candles, flashing the
light in Baby Margaret’s eyes, who immediately opened those dark orbs
wide, and made herself very broad awake, and had to be played with for
ever so long before she would consent to sleep again. And Isabel was
tired, and not to be disturbed with agitating news, and ‘put off her
night’s rest.’ Besides, what good would it do to tell her? But Jean’s
heart was heavy with thoughts of what might be coming, when she bade her
stepdaughter good night.




CHAPTER XXXVI


The next day Isabel was too much occupied with her project of visiting
Ailie at Ardnamore to be open to any argument or dissuasion. She put
aside her stepmother’s attempts to move her, with soft obstinacy. ‘She
was never a friend of yours that you should be so keen about her now,’
said Jean.

‘She was more to me than you think,’ said Isabel; and her stepmother’s
amazement was great.

‘She was liker Margret than you; but far, far different from Margret,’
Jean resumed, after a pause; ‘and you but a gay heedless lassie, no
thinking of such things.’

‘But I tell you she was more to me than you thought,’ said Isabel.

This was all that Jean could extract from her; and it gave rise to many
marvels in the good woman’s mind and serious anxiety, which she could
not express. ‘Eh, if Ailie had anything to do with that English lad,’
was the thought that passed through her mind; ‘eh, if she should be in
league with him now!’ But she could not surmount her hesitation about
mentioning Stapylton’s name.

Isabel had to leave her child behind, which was a novel thing to her,
and very strange it felt to walk away alone through the village and down
the other side of the Loch towards the steep lane that led to Ardnamore.
When she got to the gate, it was the height of the warm languorous
afternoon, and the air and the weariness had soothed her, and brought a
languorous feeling into her heart. She was not excited about Ailie, poor
girl! Isabel, in her own heart, had made out a story for Ailie, setting
her down as a neglected, melancholy wife, with a strange past behind her
and a mysterious future before, no doubt; and yet not so much lifted
beyond the range of ordinary humanity as she had been in the old days.
She expected to be shown into the old-fashioned drawing-room, with its
bright windows looking out on the Loch, and to be joined by the mistress
of the house, when she had waited a while, and to see Ailie’s attempt to
look contented, and to bear herself like the other ladies. As she
approached the house, the garden and everything around looked so
everyday and ordinary, that all that was extraordinary in Ailie’s story
gradually died out of her visitor’s mind. She would be awkward, perhaps,
in her new position; she might not even know how to receive Isabel’s
visit; but, still, no doubt three years of absence and travel had
improved her. And Isabel felt more and more as if she were paying an
ordinary visit, when the maid, who was just like other maids, let her
into the house, which was precisely like other houses. The deerskin mats
at the door, the antlers in the hall, the hats and plaids hanging about,
each took something from her interest. She began to forget Ailie, and
think only of Mrs. Diarmid of Ardnamore.

The drawing-room was a large, light room, rather low in the roof,
furnished with old-fashioned spindle-legged furniture, gilt and painted,
and covered with white covers, to preserve the fading damask below.
Isabel went in with a little gentle curiosity, seeing no one. She moved
a few steps into the room, her eye catching the Indian inlaid work of a
set of writing things upon a table, but not perceiving in the whiteness
of the room a white figure seated just within the curtains at the bay
window, half hidden in the recess. Even when she did perceive her,
Isabel stood uncertain, hesitating whether to go forward or to wait
quietly apart till Ailie should make her appearance. For surely this was
not Ailie--it must be some visitor, some caller---- But a strange sense
of recognition stole over her after the first start. She stood in her
intense blackness and gazed at the unknown being whose appearance was
such a contrast to her own; and then there came at last a faint sound of
a voice: ‘Is it you, Isabel?’

‘Oh, is it you, Ailie?’ she cried, and went up to her with something of
her old impetuous manner. Yes, it was Ailie, and yet as unlike Ailie as
fancy could have imagined. She was sitting against the wall with no
appearance of any occupation--her listless hands lying in her lap. She
was dressed in dead white, not light muslin, but opaque white stuff,
loosely made, or else hanging loosely upon her worn figure. Her face was
almost as white as her gown, her blue eyes were dilated and wandering,
her fair hair, which once had so much pale gold in it, had lost its
lustre. She was like marble, but yet she was not like death. Something
of movement, a thrill of wavering agitation and life, was about her,
although she sat as still as if, like the Lady in ‘Comus,’ she had been
bound by enchantment into her chair.

‘I did not see you when I came in,’ said Isabel. ‘I only heard of it
yesterday; and so you’ve come home?’

‘Aye--I’ve come home.’

‘And you’ve seen your own people again after all,’ said Isabel, trying
to adopt a tone of congratulation.

‘Aye--I’ve seen my own folk.’

‘And I am very glad you are back,’ said Isabel, ‘home is the best. But I
never heard till yesterday, when I came back too. How glad they would
all be! And I hope you were glad too--I hope you were pleased yourself?’

Ailie made no answer. She turned her head half away, and gazed again
over the Loch. A little almost imperceptible nod of her head was the
only indication she gave of having heard. And Isabel began to grow
nervous in spite of herself.

‘Will you not speak to me, Ailie? are you not pleased to see me? I
thought you would be pleased--and I would not lose a day. And you must
have heard,’ said Isabel, a little affronted as well as amazed at the
indifference shown her, and instinctively producing her highest claim to
consideration, ‘what dreadful trouble I have had since you went away.’

The word seemed to catch Ailie’s ear without any that followed or
preceded it. ‘Trouble!’ she said vaguely, ‘what can your trouble be in
comparison with mine?’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ cried Isabel, with violent youthful
compunction, ‘you know I have heard nothing. Oh, Ailie, don’t sit there
and look so sad--tell me about it--was it your child?’

Ailie turned upon her her great wandering, dilated eyes: ‘My child?’

‘I did not know,’ said Isabel, almost crying, ‘I thought you might have
lost--a child--when you said your trouble was worse than mine.’

‘My trouble is worse than any trouble on earth,’ said Ailie; ‘and oh to
come back here to look on the same place night and day as I knew in my
dreams. I think my heart will burst--it’s broken long, long ago,’ she
added, turning away from Isabel, with a sudden pathos in her voice. It
seemed a confession of unhappiness so open and undisguised, that Isabel
was driven to her wits’ end, not knowing what to do or say.

‘Oh, Ailie!’ she said--‘oh, Ailie, you should not say that now--I told
you, you should not marry him----’

‘Marry him!’ said Ailie, with a faint wonder stealing over her face.
‘We are meaning different things, you and me. Aye--I thought I was
wedded to the Lord; I thought He was sending me forth to do His will.
Oh, woman! what is your bairn or your man to that? And it was not that I
deceived myself,’ she continued, rising into vehemence; ‘I never
deceived myself. There was His promise, clear as the sun in the skies.
Could I no see all the wonders of the latter days? I saw them in myself;
I spoke in power; I rose up off my bed that might have been my dying
bed--and a’ to be betrayed, and casten down, and deceived!’

‘Oh, Ailie,’ cried Isabel, wringing her hands, ‘what are you speaking
of--what do you mean?’

For the moment Ailie made no answer. She never turned her head to one
side or the other--but gazed before her into the air, seeing nothing.
‘Your Margret was right,’ she said, after a pause. ‘It’s sweetest to
die--oh, it’s fine to die. Christ died, Isabel. We say it’s for us you
know, and so it is for us, but He had to do it. Nae miracle saved Him;
that’s what your Margret said.’

‘But He saved you,’ said Isabel, in her awe, under her breath.

At these words Ailie burst into a few sudden, violent tears--a momentary
paroxysm which she seemed totally incapable of controlling. ‘Whiles I
think it was some devil,’ she said.

‘Oh, Ailie,’ cried Isabel, ‘this is not you that is speaking--not you
that was always so good!’

‘That is another thing,’ said Ailie, without any apparent sense of
reproof, ‘whiles that is what I think; that it’s no me, but some ill
spirit in me. And though I think I’m sitting here, I may be with your
Margret in Heaven, throwing my gold crown before His feet. Oh, if it was
but that! Sometimes at night the Lord sends such thoughts like dew--if
it is the Lord. But then comes the awfu’ morning, Isabel Diarmid, and I
open my eyes, and my heart cries out--He has broken His word.’

‘Ailie! Ailie!’

‘Oh, dinna speak! He has broken His word. I gave up all for it--all! I
thought first I was to serve Him my own way, a single lass. But, Isabel,
you mind? I wouldna maintain my way in the face of His word. I gave up
all! And he wiled me out to the world with false hopes. And He’s broken
His own word. He’s done nought--nought--nought, that He said!’

‘Are ye speaking of Mr. John?’ said Isabel, driven to her wits’ end.
‘Oh, Ailie, is it him you mean?’

‘I mean the Lord,’ said Ailie, folding her hands together, and pressing
them to her breast.

And then there was a pause. Isabel, to whom this sounded like blasphemy,
drew a step or two apart, full of agitation and alarm. But Ailie was not
excited. She did not even change her attitude, but sat still with her
eyes vaguely fixed on the world without, and the Loch which lay so
bright in the sunshine. She gazed, but she saw nothing--her mind’s eye
was turned inward; and to the young creature full of life, and all its
movements, who stood by her, this abstracted woman was a marvel past all
comprehension. Was she unhappy in her home? was it in the want of love
that had frozen her? was it grief or loss, or some bereavement of which
Isabel knew nothing? She broke the silence at last with timid inquiries,
which sounded like a prayer.

‘But, Ailie,’ she asked, faltering at every word, ‘you have had no
grief--in your life? You have still your husband? There has been
no--death--nor--trouble? You’ve been--happy?--as much as folk are in
this world?’

‘Happy!’ It did not sound like an answer, but only like an echo of the
other voice, and another pause followed. ‘It was God’s will I sought and
nothing else,’ she said at last. ‘Was it me to think of marrying or
giving in marriage? It was my meat and my drink to do His will. Oh,
Isabel Diarmid! it’s your man and your bairn you think of--but no me.
What I was thinking on was a world lying in darkness--a’ bonnie and
bright outside--like _that_--and a’ miserable and perishing within--and
He promised He would mend it a’. Go forth and preach, He said, and I’ll
come again and the holy angels, and bring in a new Heaven and a new
earth. And there was the word in my ain mouth for a testimony. What was
I that I should speak in power if it hadna been Him that did it?--and
now all my hope is gone. The Lord Himself has broken His word. What do I
care if the earth should tumble to pieces this moment! The minister is
but dead, Isabel, and you’ll find him in Heaven; but I’m disappointed in
my God,’ cried Ailie, suddenly hiding her face in her hands; ‘and Him
I’ll never find again, neither in Heaven nor earth.’

This tragical outcry was so bitter and full of anguish, that Isabel
stopped short in the protestations that rose to her lips. And yet the
very thought of thus reproaching God made her tremble, as if it must
bring down fire from Heaven. ‘Oh, Ailie,’ she faltered, ‘it is not for
me to teach you; but oh, I dare not stand and hear you judging God!’

A low moan came from Ailie’s breast. She shook her head sadly. Her great
eyes turned to Isabel’s for a moment with the anguish of a dumb creature
in pain. She was far beyond tears. ‘There’s nae power nor voice in me
now,’ she said, ‘to teach or to speak. He’s taken His gifts away, as
well as the hope. I canna burst out and cry, “Oh, why tarry the wheels
of His chariot?” It’s all gone--all gone! spirit, and power, and life,
and hope!’

Isabel was too much bewildered and overwhelmed to reply. ‘Oh, Ailie,
have you no child?’ she cried, at last finding no other words that would
come.

She had but asked the question, when the door opened, and Mr. John came
suddenly in. When he saw Isabel he paused, and the same softened look
which had come over his face in the steamer at the sight of her again
gleamed over it.

‘You have come to see her?’ he said, and looked from the young widow in
her deep mourning to his marble-white wife in her snowy cold dress with
the strangest look of comparison. It seemed to the man as if the fate
that might have been his and that which was really his thus stood
together in visible contact. Isabel had grown more and more like her
sister without knowing it. And now when her heart was so touched with
sorrow, and wonder, and compassion, and all the depths of her nature
moving in her eyes, it might have been Margaret herself who stood there,
looking with infinite pity, striving vainly to understand the woman who
was John Diarmid’s wife.

‘She is changed,’ he said, following with his eyes Isabel’s anxious
look--‘sadly changed. It is because she will look at things only in one
way. We were mistaken, I think. The world itself is changed, though so
few can see it. It is not by converting a single soul here and there,
but by moving nations that God’s work is to be done. Ailie, I am going
away.’

‘Going: where to?’ she said, with a momentary glance into his face; ‘to
take the sword like them that shall perish by the sword? That’s no His
command. I’m a poor creature--a miserable creature--He’s cast me off,
and broken His word to me; but I’ll no forsake Him. No; there’s no word
of power put into my mouth to speak to you, John Diarmid, not any word
of power, but them that take the sword shall perish by the sword. He
said it with His own lips.’

‘Amen!’ said Mr. John; ‘it matters little. What is life to you or me
that I should care to preserve it? As long as there is a race oppressed,
so long is God’s word hindered in this world. I must go to my work--the
time of patience and quiet is past.’

‘Oh, Mr. John!’ cried Isabel, ‘you will never go and leave her alone
like this?’

He turned to her with once more that softened look. ‘Perhaps I would
not,’ he said, ‘if I could do her good. But no, Isabel. We have wrenched
ourselves out of the common soil, she and I, and we cannot take root
again. I must go to do what’s left me to do. We were fools, and took God
at His word, without thinking that the paths must be made straight and
the rough places smooth. I must go and work as I can--and she--will
die.’

He said this so low that Isabel hoped she alone heard it; and she could
not restrain a cry of wonder, and horror, and protestation.

‘Aye!’ said Ailie from her window, ‘I will die, if I can. Oh, how easy
it will be now, and sweet! When I think how I vexed Margret--and now
she’s in the secret, and knows all; and I’m fighting with my own heart,
and cast off by my God. John Diarmid, maybe I’ll be gone before you come
back.’

‘I would not hinder you, Ailie!’ he said, going up to her with sudden
emotion and taking her listless white hands into his. ‘No, though you
will reproach me before God, I would not keep you back--now when things
have come so far, that is best.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s best. All’s gone from me--all’s gone! I’m of no
use but to die. They say when the seed dies in the ground---- Oh, John
Diarmid! if you’ll grant it was a lying spirit, and no a word from the
Lord, I think I could die content.’

He did not make any answer, but stood before her holding her hands,
gazing down with a certain anguish upon the white face from which all
the tints of life had altogether died away.

‘Here’s Isabel,’ she went on, now for the first time rousing from her
blank contemplation of the world around, and fixing her eyes on his
face, ‘_her_ sister. It is as if it were Margret come herself, out of
Heaven, out of her grave, to hear you. John Diarmid, it was never love
for me, I know. Will you tell me again before _her_; was it the word of
the Lord you brought me yon night, and no just the madness in your
heart?’

Still he made her no answer, but stood and held her shadowy hand and
gazed down into her face.

‘He said I was to wed him, Isabel, for it was the word of the Lord,’
cried Ailie, rising into excitement. ‘If he’ll answer me this I want no
more on earth. If it was but his madness, and no the word of the Spirit,
then I could lie down at my Lord’s feet and say we’ve sinned. Oh, can
you no see the difference? Say we’ve sinned, it’s easy, easy! But say
thou hast tempted me and made me fall; it’s bitterer than death.’

Isabel, with the tears streaming down her cheek, drew near at this
passionate appeal. She did not understand what it meant, nor what she
was called upon to do. But her mediation was asked for, and she answered
the call by instinct. She laid her hand upon Mr. John’s arm and looked
up with beseeching eyes in his face. ‘Oh, if you can ease her mind!’
cried Isabel, not knowing what she asked.

‘Would you have me say I had spoken a lie in the Lord’s name?’ he cried,
and let his wife’s hands fall, turning away from them with the old fiery
glow blazing up in his eyes.

Then at once, and as by a spell, Ailie fell into the stillness and
apathy from which she had been momentarily roused. Her husband turned
away and went to another window to read his letters, leaving her
relapsed into her old attitude, her hands again crossed in her lap, her
eyes gazing out upon the bright, unvarying landscape. Isabel stood by
her almost as motionless as she, looking at her with an anxiety which
seemed to deprive her of all power of speech. What could she say? What
was there in Heaven or earth that could comfort this forlorn creature?
How hopeless she looked, abstracted from all the life that surrounded
her! Mr. John returned to them before Isabel could find a word to say.
He went forward to his wife and kissed her lightly on the forehead.

‘Farewell, Ailie,’ he said; ‘if I should, as you say, perish by the
sword, this will be the end of all between us--and, perhaps, it would be
best for you.’

‘Farewell,’ she said, dreamily; ‘farewell!’ It seemed at first as if she
was about to let him go without even a look. But at last a little stir
of life moved her. ‘We’ve been no blessing to each other,’ she said;
‘neither you to me, nor I to you. And my heart’s dead and the Spirit
gone from me; but you were never an ill man to me, John Diarmid. It’s
right Isabel should know. The will o’ the Lord--if it was the will o’
the Lord--hasna been blessed to you or to me. But you were never ill to
me; you would have been good to me if----’

‘If----’ said Mr. John. ‘We will enter into that subject no more. But
farewell, Ailie. I think we will never meet in this world again.’ Then
he turned to Isabel and took both her hands into his. ‘I do not care for
my life,’ he said, ‘no more than she does. It is for God’s service to do
what He likes with. But so long as she lives will you be good to her?
Neither for her sake nor mine, but for----’

‘O, hush!’ cried Isabel, ‘there should be no other name spoken of here.
Why should you go away? Ailie, you are his wife, tell him to stay. And
you are not old that you should part. Oh, Mr. John, look at me! Is it
well to be alone in the world at my age, and at her age? Stay and take
care of her yourself. She is your wife. Ailie, take his hand and make
him stay!’

She stood impetuous between the two, holding a hand of each, trying,
with her young energy, to draw the sombre, passionate, disappointed man
and the abstracted, visionary wife to each other.

‘God will not bless you if you part,’ cried Isabel. ‘Oh, look at me that
am a widow! What would I give to have my good man to be my help and
protection? Ailie, speak to him, and he will stay.’

Mr. John was the first to free himself from her hand.

‘I cannot stay,’ he said, ‘not even if she wanted me as much as now she
wants to be free of me. I have my use in the world, though not the use I
once thought. Farewell! the chances are I will never see Loch Diarmid
again.’

‘Is he gone?’ cried Isabel. ‘Oh, Ailie, look out after him, or kiss your
hand to him. Oh, give him one look before he goes, as if you were a
living woman, and no made of stone!’

And in her horror she rushed herself into the recess of the window, and
waved her hand to him as he went away. Mr. John turned round before the
door of his father’s house, which he was leaving, as he believed for
ever. A strange smile came over his face. The woman whom in his madness
he had compelled to marry him was there like a white vision, making no
sign. But the other tearful face, full of emotion, was turned towards
him; and Isabel, who had almost hated him for half her life, waved her
hand in the compunction of her mind. ‘My Margaret!’ he said, softly to
himself; and thus turned and disappeared out of the quiet world in which
he was unfit to live.

‘He is gone! Oh, Ailie, he is gone!’ said Isabel, coming back from the
window with a sob.

‘Aye, he’s gone!’ said Ailie; ‘and you are more moved than his wife. I
know what you would say, Isabel, but it’s useless--useless! What is man
to me? All that I ever was, all that I wanted, was to be the handmaid of
the Lord.’

‘But you are married to _him_!’ cried Isabel; ‘you are his wife; you
should go with him, or he should stay with you. Oh, Ailie, if it is not
too late----!’

‘There’s nae marrying, nor giving in marriage in Heaven,’ said Ailie.
‘If there is a Heaven--if it’s no just a delusion like the rest. But
what can I do? I’m willing to come to an end, and be done with all
manner of life, if that’s the Lord’s will. Asking and praying and
wishing for one thing more than another has gone clean out of my heart.’

‘And you have not a thought for him, the moment he has said farewell to
you--not a tear. Oh, Ailie!’ cried Isabel, in her impetuosity, ‘are you
made of stone?’

‘My heart’s dead,’ she said; and then relapsed into silence, which the
hasty, eager creature beside her could not break.

To leave her thus in her apathy seemed impossible to Isabel, and it was
equally impossible to stay and devote herself to Ailie’s solace, for
Ailie did not seem susceptible of any solace. She was lost in her own
thoughts. Before Isabel’s heart had ceased to throb with agitation and
excitement, Ailie had settled back into the profoundest stillness,
saying nothing to her visitor, taking no notice even of her presence.
And there was nothing left for it but to leave her to herself--to the
silence she preferred.

Isabel had just made up her mind to do this when the door opened again,
this time with more sound and commotion, and Ailie’s mother entered the
room. She came forward briskly, bringing the ordinary out-of-door life
into the mysterious atmosphere, though a certain appearance of anxiety
about her eyes betrayed that even Janet was disturbed by a state of
affairs so much different from her hopes.

‘Eh, Mrs. Lothian, I’m glad to see you,’ she said, ‘but will you no sit
down? My daughter is so taken up about parting with Ardnamore that she’s
no as thoughtful as she should be. Ailie, my dear, I hope you’ve thanked
Mrs. Lothian for coming to see you. It’s a real attention, and her no in
the way of visiting; but you were ay friends. Will you no sit down?’

‘I am going away,’ said Isabel, with a little dignity. ‘I have been here
a long time. If there is anything I can do for Ailie, or anything Miss
Catherine can do, if you will let us know----’

‘Miss Catherine, no doubt, will come and see her,’ said Janet; ‘she’s
her ain relation. Na, there’s nothing anybody can do. She’s in her ain
house, and a pleasant house it is. But Mrs. Diarmid will ay be glad to
see her friends. You see she’s taken up just at this moment with her
husband going away,’ said the dauntless old woman, confronting Isabel
bravely, with a look which defied criticism. Isabel, however, had been
too much moved by the interview to have any regard for appearances. She
turned round upon the watchful mother as soon as the door of the room
closed upon them.

‘Oh, tell me,’ she said, ‘has she been long like this? Is she always
like this? Is there nothing that can be done?’

‘Like what, Mistress Lothian?’ said the old woman, looking direct into
Isabel’s eyes.

And then there was a dead pause. Janet’s forehead had a contraction in
it which only anxiety could have made so distinctly visible among the
native wrinkles. The ruddy old cheek was blanched out of its usual
wholesome wintry colour; but she stood by the door of the room in which
her daughter sat, like a sentinel, and defied the world.

‘I mean--oh, how can you ask me?--who can see her, and not feel their
hearts break?’ cried Isabel. ‘Will it always be like this?’

‘I dinna take your meaning,’ said Janet, grimly. ‘Ardnamore’s away on
business, and Mrs. Diarmid is, maybe, no so cheerful as she might be.
And I wouldna say but she’s a wee tired with her journey. I think ye
never were abroad? It’s more fashious than just going to London. And
when ye’ve been travelling like that, day and night, ye want rest.’

Isabel’s innocent mind was confused by this view of the matter. ‘Then,
do you think, after all, that she’s not unhappy?’ she asked.

‘Unhappy!’ cried the old woman, ‘and her a good man, and a comfortable
house, and well thought on, and everything that heart could desire!’

She had raised her voice, and the words seemed to ring through the
mysterious, silent house. Isabel, who was too inexperienced to avoid
yielding a bewildered assent to any strenuous assertion, was so moved by
this that she went away wondering, asking herself whether she could be
mistaken. But as soon as the door had closed upon her poor Janet’s
strength broke down. She threw her apron over her head, and leaned
against the wall, silent yet convulsed by a momentary struggle. ‘But
I’ll never let on to the world,’ the old woman said to herself, as she
came out from under that veil with a fiery sparkle in her worn, old
eyes. Poor Ailie had at least one defender ready to stand by her to the
death.




CHAPTER XXXVII


Isabel went out again on her way home with a mingled feeling of relief
and bewilderment. She was not nourishing one single thought of herself
or her own affairs as she threaded the winding way; and perhaps it was
for this reason that the sight of the figure, advancing to meet her as
she turned the corner, came upon her with such startling suddenness. Two
steps brought her from the solitude of the road immediately in front of
him, and these two steps marked the immensely greater revulsion from
unselfish solicitude for another to the sudden wild return of her own
life into her passive soul, which seemed no actor, but only a spectator
of the change. She came round the corner lightly and swiftly with
dreaming eyes, looking into the air, which was vacant of everything but
the trees and the reflections of sky and water, and all the sweetness of
the time--and suddenly looked full into the face of Horace Stapylton, so
near to her that he seemed to have sprung from some hiding-place, or
dropped from the sky! Had there been even a minute’s interval to prepare
her for his appearance, it would have been different. But he came upon
her all at once without even a sound of his step on the mossy, grassy
path. She stood still and gave a low cry. Her heart gave a leap as to
her lips. A sudden colour rushed over her face, and with a pang as
sudden, the sense of having betrayed herself rushed after the first
thrill of emotion into her heart.

‘Isabel!’ he said, making one rapid step towards her, and taking her
hand in his. He would never have ventured to do it, but for her
self-betrayal. He had not been taken by surprise. He gazed at her with
eyes that shone and glowed with unconcealed feeling. Isabel grew as
suddenly pale as she felt the warm pressure of his hand. She drew
herself away, and stepped aside, and made him a little formal bow.

‘I beg your pardon,’ she said, ‘Mr. Stapylton; I did not know you were
there. It was--the surprise----’

‘And then when you recollect, and get over the surprise, you drive me
away,’ he said, looking as he had looked in the old days, when he had a
lover’s right to her attention, and dared complain and quarrel with her.
‘Why should you drive me away? Why may we not be friends?’

‘Mr. Stapylton, you mistake,’ she said, with confusion; ‘I was not
thinking--there is no reason. I was startled to see you--I mean, to see
anyone. The road is so lonely here.’

‘There was a time,’ he said, turning with her as she made a movement to
go on--‘there was a time when it would have been no surprise to you to
meet me anywhere, wherever I knew you to be.’

‘But times change,’ she said, breathlessly, and then, with eagerness to
change the subject, made the best plunge she could into general
conversation. ‘I have been seeing Mrs. Diarmid, at Ardnamore.’

‘That was Ailie; was it not?’

‘Yes, it was Ailie,’ she said, regaining a little courage. ‘She married
Mr. John. Not caring for him, perhaps--that is--I mean--not at first.’

‘People do such things,’ he said, not looking at her, ‘every day.’

‘And she has come back,’ said Isabel, who was too much agitated to think
that he meant to launch any passing arrow at herself, ‘and I do not
understand what ails her. She is no longer a prophet; but that is not
all. She sits and never looks at you, never speaks; and she says God has
deceived her; and her husband has gone away.’

‘They must be a strange couple,’ said Stapylton, bringing that subject
to a sudden close. Perhaps it was her evident agitation, the tremor with
which she recognised him in her surprise, that made him so bold; but he
was impatient, it was clear, of ordinary conversation. ‘I can’t call you
by your new name,’ he said, suddenly. ‘When I saw you the other day,
with that old woman by your side--and that--child--in your arms----’

‘Mr. Stapylton, you are not to speak to me so!’

‘When I saw you,’ he repeated, with a certain hurry and sweep of
passion, which she could not stand against, ‘it shook me like an
earthquake. Yes, Isabel--I have been like you, trying not to think.
Don’t try now to make me believe you are quite calm talking of other
things. You can’t forget three years ago--I know you don’t forget----’

‘I have nothing to be ashamed of--in--three years ago,’ said Isabel,
trembling, and with all the colour rushing to her face.

‘And I have,’ he said. ‘Ah, I acknowledge that; I would confess it on my
knees if you would listen. Ashamed--bitterly ashamed! To think of all
that might have been prevented--all the harm that might have been
spared--if I had not been such a coward and a fool.’

There was self-reproach in his voice; and Isabel felt a tender
compunction seize her, felt her strength stolen from her. If going away
from her had made him desperate, should not she be the first to forgive?

‘Indeed I do not blame you,’ she said softly; ‘it has turned out--for
the best.’

‘For the best!’ he cried passionately; ‘at least, you cannot expect me
to grant that. Your very dress which you wear for _him_--your very
name--everything--how can I stand here and look at you and bear it--I
who never changed in my heart?’

‘Mr. Stapylton,’ said Isabel, ‘you have nothing to do with me now. You
are a stranger, and we were not speaking of your heart. That has
nothing--nothing to do with me. I must go home to my baby. I beg of you
not to come any further, but to let me go.’

‘Isabel,’ he said, ‘look at me, don’t turn your eyes away from me: I am
not a stranger; you could not make me so were you ever so cruel; the
time will never be when we shall have nothing to do with each other, you
and I--only look at me! What reason can there be why we should part
now?’

‘Oh, Mr. Stapylton, let me go,’ she said, shrinking aside from him, not
venturing to raise her eyes. She dared not look at him as he begged her
to do. She knew that her eyes would have betrayed her--that the beating
in her temples and the throbbing in her ears would have found some
expression in every look she could turn upon him. Never for all these
years had her heart beat as it was beating now. She had been a wife and
a widow and a mother, and yet the sound of Horace Stapylton’s voice
moved her more deeply than all the events of her own life had done. She
hated herself for it, but yet it was so. Her heart went out to him past
all her power of restraint. And though her face flushed with bitter
shame, and her heart ached with self-reproach, yet she could not help
it. The only safeguard she had was in flight. ‘Let me go,’ she repeated,
keeping her eyes on the ground, and keeping as far apart from him as the
narrow path would permit.

‘Yes, if you hate me altogether,’ he said, with vehemence. ‘If you do, I
might have spared myself--much, very much, that can’t be undone. If you
hate me, I will let you go!’

The sound of his voice went to her heart. She was free to pass, yet she
could not refrain from one glance at him. He was trembling; his face was
as pale as death, and drawn together with tragic force of passion. And
Isabel could not bear this dreadful expression on the face of the man
she had once loved.

‘Oh, it is not that I hate you!’ she cried, out of the depths of her
heart.

‘Then you love me!’ he said, wildly seizing her hand. ‘Between us there
can be no alternative. Oh, Isabel, I have bought you dear! Never send me
away again.’

‘Oh, let me go!’ she repeated, with such a struggle going on within as
her whole past life had not experienced. She, Mr. Lothian’s wife, to
stand here with a man--any man, be he whom he might, kissing her hand!
She, little Margaret’s mother! She could not bear it. She snatched her
hand from him, and covered her face with it, and sank down on the grassy
bank where she stood. What else could she do but weep her heart out,
words being impossible? She could say no more; she could not dare to
look at him again. The struggle had come to such a point that there was
nothing left for her but the unspeakable utterance of tears.

And she was grateful to him that he took no advantage of her weakness.
He did not even take her hand again, or take her into his arms as he
might have done, but stood looking at her, with something she did not
understand in his eyes. How it was she saw the look in his face, through
her passionate tears, she herself could not have explained. But she was
conscious of it, and of a certain compassion and awe mingled in the
eagerness of his gaze, which kept him standing apart, with a delicacy
which had never appeared in him before.

‘Isabel,’ he said, hoarsely; ‘though you are cruel to me, I will not be
hard upon you. I love you the same as ever--and you love me; all that
has come between us is past. Don’t let us so much as speak of that--it
is all over, my darling; there is no obstacle between us now. No, I will
not press you further. I would not vex you for all the world. I will
come to you to the old place or to your own house, my dear, if that is
better. And after all it has cost us, Isabel--oh, Isabel! may we not be
happy at last?’

‘Horace, let me be!’ she cried, rising to her feet and holding out her
hands to him as with an appeal for mercy.

‘I can never let you be,’ he cried, seizing her hands and putting down
his face upon them for one moment. She felt that his eyes were wet and
his lips dry and quivering, and their positions seemed reversed all at
once--and it was she who yearned over him, longing to console him and
give some comfort to his heart.

‘Oh, Horace,’ she said, ‘you are going away--you said you were going
away? and you’ll forget. I could not live if I thought it grieved you
and made your heart sore. You’ll go away, and you’ll think on me no
more! Why should we be so sorry? It has not been appointed that you and
me should be together. Bid me farewell; and, oh, go away and mind me no
more. But I’ll think of you every night when I say my prayers.’

His answer was such a groan as made her start and shrink; and then he
raised a pale, passionate face to her, and drew her to him, holding both
her hands.

‘You are to be my wife, Isabel!’ he said.

‘No: oh, no. I am _his_ wife,’ she said, with a cry half of terror; ‘and
my child--my child!’

‘Was it my fault he took you from me?’ he cried. ‘I was absent and did
not know. Your child shall be mine, Isabel; and you are mine--say you
are mine! We can never more part again.’

‘Oh, Horace! let me go.’

It was the sound of a step on the road which interrupted this strange
struggle. He let her hands fall as this sound, and that of a cheerful
rural voice singing some homely ditty, fell suddenly into those
exclamations of passion, and stopped them as by a spell. When Helen, the
‘lass’ from Ardnamore, came down the road she saw, at first without
surprise, Mrs. Lothian walking down before her, with a ‘strange
gentleman’ by her side--‘ane of thae English,’ Helen said to herself,
reflecting that the young widow had been in London, and consequently
might be supposed to be acquainted with that nation in general. Helen’s
after reflections, when she came to put this and that together, were of
a different character, but for the moment she was not suspicious. She
passed them with the ordinary salutation, ‘It’s a fine day,’ taking no
note of the tearful dilation of Isabel’s eyes; and, all unconsciously to
herself, was Isabel’s guardian and protector. It was like the Stapylton
of old that he should have fallen into a moody silence after this
interruption. And he left Isabel when they reached the highroad. ‘I will
see you again,’ was all he said. To see them thus parting, taking
different directions, no one would have thought what a contest of wills
had just taken place between them, nor with what an agitated soul Isabel
turned along the sunny way by the Loch side, to the home which had once
been so still and quiet, where her baby awaited her, and her tranquil,
pensive, unexciting life remained waiting to be taken up again as soon
as she should return.




CHAPTER XXXVIII


Jean was looking out in the opposite direction, somewhat anxious for her
stepdaughter’s return. She was standing at the cottage-door with Baby
Margaret in her arms, straining her eyes along the vacant road, and full
of anxiety. She gave a suppressed scream when Isabel came noiselessly up
behind her, and, without saying a word, clutched at the child and took
it out of her arm.

‘God bless us, I thought it was a ghost!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Isabel, you’re
like death. It’s been more than you can bear.’

‘I am tired,’ said Isabel, holding her child close with a vehemence
which terrified the little creature; and as she looked at her
stepmother, the pallor gave way to a sudden, overpowering flush. Her
eyes fell before the good woman’s anxious, searching look. She turned
away, still holding her child strained to her heart. She could not trust
herself to meet Jean’s eyes, or even her baby’s. Could she ever venture
to look anyone in the face again?

‘It’s a long walk,’ said Jean, anxiously, following her in, ‘and you’ve
come the long way round by the braes; and it’s been too much for you.
Oh, Isabel, my bonnie woman! it’s brought everything back to your mind.’

‘It did not need the sight of Ailie to do that,’ said Isabel, scarcely
knowing what she said. ‘Do things ever go out of one’s mind?’

And she held her child closer than ever, and hid her face in Margaret’s
frock. It did not occur to her that she was betraying herself even by
the passionate strain of that embrace. Jean gazed at her alarmed, noting
every change in her face, the sudden flush and pallor, the
inward-looking eyes, the reluctance to meet her own affectionate,
anxious gaze.

‘Was she awfu’ changed?’ she asked.

‘Changed--whom?’ said Isabel, with a little start. She had scarcely
uttered the words when she recollected herself. Ailie had been driven
entirely out of her mind by the after event; the scene which had made so
deep an impression on her before she met Stapylton was half effaced from
her very recollection. It rose upon her dimly as she tried to remember.
‘Oh, yes, very much changed,’ she said, and stopped short, unable to
revive her own interest in a matter so faint and far away.

‘Do you think she’s happy?’ asked Jean.

Strange to think anyone could be so inquisitive! Why should she be
forced to pause and recall an experience so distant? ‘I don’t know,’
said Isabel; ‘how can anybody tell? People are happy sometimes when they
ought not to be happy, and miserable when they have no reason to be
miserable. Am I the judge?--or how can I tell?’

‘But dear me, Isabel, you were awfu’ anxious about her,’ cried Jean,
affronted; ‘and would give nobody any peace till ye had been to see her.
And now it seems ye dinna care.’

‘Oh, yes, I care; if you would let me rest and be quiet, and not ask me
anything now!’

Half offended, wondering, and disturbed, Jean looked at the speaker. It
was very clear that Ailie had but little to do with Isabel’s excitement.
This sudden irritation and impatience reminded her of the old times
before her stepdaughter had been subdued by the events of life, or had
learned to control herself. Mrs. Lothian had not been guilty of those
movements of temper and impetuous feeling which were so lively in
Isabel Diarmid. Was it that some other subtle change had come, setting
at nought the work of experience, and bringing back the original natural
condition of the girl’s restless, vivacious soul? Jean did not ask
herself so elaborate a question, but the substance of it was in her
mind. She said no more, but went softly about the room, putting in order
things which needed no arrangement, and watching secretly her
stepdaughter’s looks. Isabel took no notice of what she was doing. As
soon as she was left to herself she relieved Baby Margaret from the
close strain against her breast which had terrified the child, and began
to kiss her passionately and pour forth over her inarticulate murmurs of
tenderness. Such an outburst of compunctious caresses was as significant
as the other strange appearances in her. ‘As if she had done the
innocent bairn some harm,’ Jean said to herself. And what could it mean?
Isabel would not let no hand but her own touch her child during the
remainder of the day. She made no further comment upon her visit to
Ardnamore, but occupied herself wholly with little Margaret, talking to
her, caressing her, controlling her baby will--having even, for the
first time in her life, a little struggle and contest with the child,
who perhaps felt by instinct the state of excitement in which its mother
was. Jean looked on without interfering, with curious, grave scrutiny
and alarm. When the infant was naughty, and cried, and struggled, she
kept behind not to put herself in the way. But many speculations were in
her mind, and some of them not far from the truth.

Jean had taken fright, though she could not herself have told why. For
one thing, she was aware of Stapylton’s presence in the parish, and
thought of him as of a prowling enemy. But it was difficult for her to
associate Isabel’s strange abstractions, her passionate devotion to her
child, and all the signs of suppressed agitation about her, with the
reappearance of her former lover. Jean had passed the period at which
people realise vividly such conflicts of the heart. It seemed to her
more likely that Isabel’s calm had been disturbed by all the
recollections which the sight of Ailie must have brought to her, than
that Mr. Lothian’s widow could have been agitated or excited by the
appearance of any man under the sun. ‘Yon English lad’ had never been
good enough for ‘our Isabel’ in her stepmother’s eyes; and that she
could think of him now seemed well-nigh impossible. But yet something
was wrong; and as soon as Isabel had left the house, Jean sent her son
on an errand across the braes to the Dominie to beg his help and
counsel. Jamie was too late to find ‘the Maister.’ He had gone out on
one of the long walks with which, now summer had come, he endeavoured to
make up to himself for the want of his friend and companion. But,
notwithstanding the failure of this messenger, Mr. Galbraith heard the
news more distinctly than Jean could have informed him, or than she
herself knew. The smithy was still open when he returned home in the
twilight, and had as usual a little band collected in it of men,
observers upon humanity and critics of its wondrous ways. John
Macwhirter himself, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, was in front of
the group, doing nothing, for it was warm, and it was near even his time
for closing. He was rubbing his great hands together, looking
meditatively into the summer air; but the observation that fell from his
lips was not an original one. ‘Women are queer beings,’ was all that he
said.

‘I see nothing queer in it, for my part,’ said Peter Chalmers. ‘He was
well known to be after Isabel afore ever she married the minister; and
now he’s come back----’

‘Who are ye speaking of, I would like to know?’ the Dominie said, who
had entered listlessly, and whom these words had excited in spite of
himself.

‘There was nae offence meant,’ said Peter. ‘I ca’ her but as a’ the
country-side ca’ed her afore she married the minister. And it was nae
secret that ever I heard tell of. I’ve seen them thegither on the braes
and on the road. It was kept quiet, I’ve ay heard, out of consideration
for Margret; who couldna bide the lad. And syne when Margret died he was
sent for hame--and out o’ sight out o’ mind is the way of the world. But
now that she’s free, and he’s come back, ye canna crush nature. If they
come thegither again, as is to be expected, what’s that to you or me?’

‘Again, I ask, who are ye speaking of?’ said Mr. Galbraith with grim
emphasis.

‘Na, na, maister, there’s nae call to be angry,’ said John Macwhirter;
‘he’s a nasty cynical body, but this time it’s true. Naebody thought
mair of the auld minister than me--this one could never hold the candle
to him; but he wasna just the man for a young lass. And she’s but young
for a’ that’s come and gane; and her lad’s come back----’

‘How dare ye say such a word?’ cried the Dominie, enraged. ‘Eh, men,
you’re no worthy to be called men, if a lassie like that, made a widow
as she was, gets no reverence from ye! Poor bit gentle thing! her only
protector gone, and nothing but an infant between her and despair ye may
say. I wonder ye don’t think shame?’

‘That’s a’ true, a’ true,’ said the smith; ‘but I ay stick up for
justice. If Mrs. Lothian should be glad to see the lad she once likit,
is that ony sin? Naebody was blaming her. No, no, maister, ye mustna go
beyond nature. He was a good man and a clever man; but ye’re no so
simple as to think that a bonnie young lass should be bound a’ her life
because she was his wife for a year! Would that be reasonable? I’m no
taking one side or another, but as Peter says, “What’s the harm?"’

‘I ask ye what’s the evidence! which is more to the purpose?’ said the
Dominie.

‘Weel, nae doubt it’s a slender foundation to build so much on,’ said
John. ‘She’s been at Ardnamore the day, and she met him on the road.
That’s all about it--nothing ye may say, but casting a seed into the
ground. Eelin, the lass at Ardnamore, saw them talking, and she came on
and tellt the wives; and the wives they’ve a’ made up their minds how
it’s to be--ye canna stop the tongues of a wheen women. And I canna say
it’s anything but natural if ye ask me mysel.’

‘It would be hard to tell in what you’re better than the women, making a
work about such childish clavers,’ said Mr. Galbraith with disdain.

‘Well we’re mair philosophical,’ said the smith; ‘they’re a’ at her like
hens at a grosset, and no a civil word in their heads. I’m an awfu’ man
for justice myself. A young lass is but a young lass if she was a widow
twenty times over, and nae doubt before he did such a foolish thing the
minister counted the cost, and kent weel that his young widow would wed
some other man. Lord bless us it’s human nature! She’s no
five-and-twenty yet. She’s no an auld wife to be content with her wean?
It’s nature, just nature! I’m neither blaming her nor him.’

‘I advise you to say no more about it, philosophical or no,’ said the
Dominie; ‘there are lads and lasses enough in the parish without
bringing in them that are out of your way. I say nothing for the
rest--but, John Macwhirter, there are inklings of understanding about
you, and I looked for better at your hand.’

‘I’ve said nae ill I ken of,’ said the smith, half sullen, half abashed.
‘A woman is but a woman if she was a queen. No but what I have a great
respect for Mrs. Lothian,’ he added, with some embarrassment. ‘Lord,
Peter, if ye say another word, as sure as death ye shall hae a taste of
the Loch, to put ye in mind wha ye are.’

‘I’m no conscious I ever forgot who I was,’ said Peter, with a laugh,
‘nor other folk. Respect be to a’ where respect is due; but as ye were
saying, John, lads and lasses are ay the same, be it in a cot or in a
palace. The Maister himsel canna contradict that.’

‘I’m saying nothing about your lads and lasses,’ said the Dominie,
severely; ‘but, lads, ye can have little feeling in your minds, and
ye’ve forgotten every lesson ye ever got from me, if ye cannot respect
the very name of a woman that never did one of ye harm--that has neither
father, nor brother, nor husband, to stand up for her--and that is no
more mistress who she shall meet on the common road, or who will speak
to her, than you or me. There’s no a man among you but should have been
a lone lassie’s defender and guard of honour had ye listened to me!’

With these words Mr. Galbraith started forth into the night, in all the
grandeur of indignation, leaving the club of rural gossips much
disconcerted. He had taught the most of them all they knew of
book-learning, and there were few who had not a certain awe of the
Maister who had corrected his youth. There was silence when he went out,
followed after an interval by a feeble attempt at a laugh. ‘The
Dominie’s mounted his high horse,’ somebody said in the darkness; but
there was no immediate echo of the sentiment. And what the Dominie had
commenced was accomplished triumphantly by Mrs. Macwhirter, the smith’s
wife, who came forward with her baby in her arms, to sound a note of
victory over the discomfiture of ‘the men.’

‘Eh, but ye’ve weel deserved it!’ she said, ‘clashing and clavering like
a wheen auld wives. That I should say sae! There’s no an auld wife in
the country-side that’s a man’s match for an ill tongue. A’ the nasty
stories that are ever told in this parish, and mony a parish mair, trace
them up, and ye’ll ay find they’ve come frae the smiddy, or the public,
wherever there’s men meeting. Eh, lads, I would think shame----’

‘Gang back to your weans!’ said the smith, peremptorily. ‘It’s late,
friends, and time we were a’ in our beds. I’ll wish ye good night, for
it’s time to shut up the place. Gang back, I say, woman, to your weans.’

And the meeting of the rural convocation was brought to a sudden close.




CHAPTER XXXIX


The morning rose anxiously over all the personages of this little drama.
Isabel, sleepless, fatigued, and unresolved, rose pale to the new day
which she felt might bring change incalculable to her life. Jean, who
kept hovering about her, watching with keen attention every movement she
made, increased Isabel’s suppressed agitation. There was a permanent
flush on her face; her eyes were abstracted, and took little note of
what was going on. She seemed scarcely aware of the passage of time, and
was irritated when she was called upon to sit down at the table and eat,
and go through all the ordinary domestic routine. ‘Oh, if you would
leave me quiet!’ she exclaimed, half unconsciously, turning away her
face from the scrutiny of which she was only half aware.

‘My bonnie woman! you’re no weel?’ said Jean.

‘I am quite well; there is nothing the matter with me. I have--a
headache. I don’t feel--able to talk,’ said Isabel, stumbling from one
sentence to another. And then she wound up with the plaint of weariness,
so familiar in its sound, ‘Oh, if you would let me be!’

Let her alone--leave her to revolve and re-revolve the questions that
were rushing through her mind in endless succession without any answer!
Poor Jean did her best to answer this prayer. She went and shut herself
up in the kitchen with her children, and gave them their dinner. And
then she thought the broth was exceptionally good, and that fasting was
bad for a headache; so she got up from her own meal and carried a basin
of the family soup into the parlour. ‘They’re real good the day,’ she
said, wistfully; ‘try a spoonfu’, Isabel.’

Isabel was standing at the window once more looking out. She turned
round quickly at the sound of the opening door, and a blaze of momentary
anger came across her face. ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘I could not eat;’ and
then sat down suddenly, drawing her work to her. Jean stood in the
doorway and gazed, holding always the basin in her hand.

‘Are you looking for somebody?’ she said. ‘Oh, Isabel, if you would but
tell me! There’s something wrong, but what it is I canna tell.’

‘There is nothing wrong,’ said Isabel; and for a moment her needle flew
through her work, while Jean stood looking at her. Then she roused to
impatience again. ‘I said I had a headache; if you would leave me quiet,
just for a little while----!’

‘I’ll do that, my bonnie woman,’ said Jean; and withdrew regretfully
with her broth. But before she resumed her place at the table another
thought struck her. This time it was a glass of wine she carried into
the parlour. ‘No to disturb you, Isabel,’ she said; ‘but a young thing
like you shouldna fast so lang. I’ve brought you a glass of sherry-wine;
it’s no ill to take and it will keep your heart----’

‘I want nothing, thank you,’ said Isabel.

‘But you’ll take it to please me,’ said Jean. Just then a knock at the
door made both of them start. Isabel, without speaking, raised her eyes
with a dumb, wistful appeal to the only comforter within her reach. And
Jean, in her agitation, spilled the wine as she placed it on the table.
‘It’s maybe naebody,’ she said, with sudden comprehension, and with a
yearning of her heart over the child about to be exposed to danger and
trial.

‘What will I do?’ cried Isabel, clasping her hands.

‘Oh, Isabel, think of the bairn, and the Lord will be a guide to you,’
said Jean, with tears in her eyes. Not a word of explanation had passed
between them, but the elder woman came and kissed the younger one with a
sudden understanding of the conflict and struggle such as no words could
have conveyed to her. Then the knock was repeated, and Jean hurried away
to open the door, wiping her hands with her apron. Her own anxieties and
jealousies were all quenched in a moment in that rush of genuine
sympathy. ‘For she ay likit the lad!’ Jean said to herself, feeling by
instinct that poor Isabel had traitors within as well as temptations
without.

It was, however, not Stapylton, but the Dominie who stood waiting at the
door; and the revulsion of feeling was such that Jean could scarcely be
civil to Mr. Galbraith. ‘Oh, aye, she’s ben the house; but she’s no weel
the day, and I canna have her vexed,’ said Isabel’s anxious guardian,
looking jealously at this new disturber of her repose.

‘I’m sorry she’s not well; but I have not come to vex her,’ said the
Dominie. His reception was so strange a one that it was not wonderful if
it startled him. When he went into the parlour he met the wistful gaze
of Isabel’s dilated, excited eyes; but when she saw it was him, and not
another, her look changed in a moment, and she fell into a sudden
outburst of tears. Disappointment, relief, a strain of feeling which he
could not understand, was in the sudden change which came over her
face--and the Dominie, being but a man, was not so quick of apprehension
as Jean.

‘I have startled you, my dear,’ he said.

‘Oh, not startled--’ said Isabel; ‘but--my head aches; and--I was not
expecting you--and----’

The explanation fell into a broken murmur of words; and she dried her
tears hastily with an agitated hand. The Dominie had come with the
intention of saying some word of warning; though how it was to be
introduced, or what kind of warning it was to be, he could not have told
anyone. He had hoped that circumstances might have led to some remark
about the strangers in the parish, and that he would have said
something which should ‘put her on her guard.’ Such warnings seem so
much easier to give when the person to be warned is not present. He sat
down by her in her little parlour, and found that, so far as his mission
was concerned, he had not a word to say.

‘What would you say to a change of air,’ said the Dominie, ‘if you are
not well?’

‘You forget I have just come home.’

‘And so I did,’ he said. ‘But I do not like these mild inland places
like the Bridge of Allan. If you were to go to the sea, or to the
hills----’

‘I am best at home,’ said Isabel.

And then there was a dead pause. She had taken her work, and was
labouring against time, her needle flying through the linen, her head
bent down over it. Mr. Galbraith gave a quiet sigh, and felt himself
baffled. He did not know how to introduce his subject, and he could not
understand the state of suppressed excitement in which she evidently
was.

‘There are a great many strangers in the parish just now,’ he said at
last, himself making the remark which he had hoped might have come from
her, ‘and some that are not strangers altogether. I hear, Mrs. Lothian,
that you’ve been at Ardnamore?’

‘Yes, I’ve been at Ardnamore.’

‘And you’ve seen them _all_?’ asked Mr. Galbraith, with emphasis.

‘I have seen Ailie and--Mr. John,’ she said, raising her eyes to his
face. (It seemed to her, as she spoke, that there was another step on
the road, and that she could hear it pause at the cottage-door; and in
her trouble she betook herself to craft, as was natural.) ‘But you must
not ask me about them,’ she said; ‘it was more--than I could bear.
It--brought everything back. It is that, I suppose, that has made me so
foolish to-day.’

‘It can never be foolish to remember what is past,’ said the Dominie,
reassured. ‘Don’t drive the thought from you, as silly folk tell you.
The past is precious; sometimes it is all that is left to us. You are
young, and you have your child; but I doubt if you will ever have such a
treasure as yon year. Isabel, my dear, I’ve seen you a bairn, though you
were my friend’s wife. Think on him still. There are few such seen in
this life.’

‘I know that well,’ said Isabel, glad, poor child, in unconscious
hypocrisy to secure thus a pretence for her too ready tears.

‘Aye, think upon him!’ said the Dominie. ‘You’re bonnie and young, and
may get the offer of many a man; but, perhaps, never another like
him--most likely never another like him. You should be proud of the
past. You have had one of the best men that ever was born; and if you
had been an angel out of Heaven, he could not have set you up higher, or
made more of you. Isabel, sometimes you must think of that!’

‘Oh, I think of it!’ said Isabel, with streaming eyes. And the Dominie
drew his large hand over the great caves that lay under his eyebrows;
his heavy eyelids were wet, and the muscles quivering about his mouth.
He did not attempt to explain to her, nor even to himself, why he was so
much in earnest, why he addressed her in so solemn a strain. It seemed
natural. As for Isabel, she wanted no explanation; she was neither
offended, nor even surprised. The very atmosphere around her spoke to
her as plainly as he had spoken. At such a crisis it was but natural
that everyone should be moved, even stocks and stones if that could be.

‘And now I must go away,’ he said, rising, with a smile gleaming out
under the unshed tear. ‘It’s the hour of the bairns’ dinner, and a kind
of necessity was upon me to come and see you. No; I’ll take nothing. The
afternoon school is not so long. God bless you, Isabel! and guide you
aright--in----’

He broke off in the middle of the sentence, as if (she thought) there
was something he could not trust himself to say--and went away without
looking round, or adding any ordinary farewell. But his agitation did
not wound or even surprise Isabel. She dried her own wet eyes when he
was gone, and tried to throw herself back, as he had told her, into ‘yon
year’--the year of her marriage--when she had been worshipped like
something divine, and guarded as the apple of her husband’s eyes. ‘You
should be proud of the past,’ her Mentor had said. And Isabel had
strained at it, trying with all her might to bring it back to her mind;
but could not. Her imagination rushed instead to that meeting on the
hill-side under Ardnamore, to every word, every look, every tone of that
strange interview. Oh, how bitter it was, to be unable to control her
thoughts, or turn them as she would, or keep them to matters which her
mind could approve. They escaped from her with a leap to go to _him_;
and with a guilty pang at her heart, Isabel felt that the bitter was not
so poignant, not so irresistible as the sweet.

Baby Margaret woke, and began to cry from the inner room, while her
mother sat lost in this struggle. Isabel rose with the alacrity of
custom to take the child; but Jean rushed suddenly in before her, and
had the infant in her arms before the mother could reach it. Jean was
pale, and her eyes all a-glow with excitement. ‘Na, na,’ she said,
holding the child fast, ‘leave her with me. There’s ane coming up the
brae, Isabel, that ye’ll have to see.’

‘Give me my bairn,’ said the poor young mother with a cry; and then she
sank trembling in a chair, her very limbs failing under her. Half
defiant, half sympathetic, Jean stood before her with the baby in her
arms.

‘It’s no fit she should be here. You’ll have to see him, and to say
what’s to be. But, oh, Isabel, dinna forget that you have a bairn!’ said
Jean, with sudden tears.

‘No till I forget myself,’ said Isabel, not knowing what she said; and
then there was a sudden stillness round her, and she became aware that
she was face to face with her fate.

She raised her eyes, which were veiled with dreams, yet shining with
suppressed excitement, to the face of Stapylton, who stood looking down
upon her. The man who had tried to beguile her from her last duty to
Margaret--who had wooed her and tempted her, and almost spurned her on
the braes--who had written that letter--who had left her for a whole
year alone to comfort herself as she might, before she could consent to
permit the other truer, generous love to console her in her solitude.
All this rushed through her mind as she looked up at him; and at the
same moment her heart flew from her like a bird, and took refuge, as it
were, in his breast. She had no power to help herself.

‘Isabel,’ he said, ‘I have come to say what you would not let me say
yesterday. Why should we keep apart, you and I? I have not come to speak
of the past--not a word. Thank Heaven it is over. It shall never be
mentioned between us. You were my Isabel when my father sent for me; be
my Isabel now.’

‘How can that be?’ she said, under her breath.

‘It can be,’ he answered, bending down over her; and--it was not
self-delusion on her part--there was a softness in his voice, a
tenderness that had never been there before. For the first time Isabel
felt a certainty that he was thinking of her, how to be most gentle to
her, how to please and to move her, more than of himself. ‘I might have
looked for you on the hills as I used to do,’ he went on, ‘but I thought
it was best to come here to your own home. Isabel, there is no time for
courting now. We cannot play with the thought, and quarrel, and make
friends, as we used to do. Life is more serious nowadays. We must be man
and wife!’

‘You are not the judge, Mr. Stapylton,’ she cried, with a touch of her
old impatience; ‘it is for me to settle that, and not you.’

‘But you will settle it, Isabel. We are older, we should know our own
minds, and the time for the braes is over,’ he said. ‘Isabel! you have
never been out of my heart. I tried to forget you at first, and
then--but I said there was to be nothing of the past.’

‘You succeeded well,’ said Isabel, ‘in forgetting me. There was a
year--a whole year----’

He sat down by her and took her hand. She had given up the contest when
she thus upbraided him; and it seemed to her, as he seated himself by
her side, that a strange long dream was over, and that all things were
again as they had been when the two had met upon the braes.

‘I was not a free man;’ he said: ‘my father was lying dying, and he
would not die. Don’t question me of that. Is it not all past? And, my
darling, you are mine again.’

‘No; oh no,’ she cried, with a little instinctive shudder, drawing back;
‘there was more--far more, than that.’

‘What more?’ He was pale with the suspense and with eagerness. He
stretched out his hand again to claim hers, which she had withdrawn.
‘Yes, there was more,’ he continued, looking fixedly in her face; ‘would
to God I could forget the rest!’

A flush of shame rushed over Isabel’s cheeks. At that moment, when he
professed for her a constant love which had known no interruption, what
could she say of her own marriage; how could she even think of it? Was
it not treachery, almost vice? The colour came up like flame over her
face. She felt their positions changed at once, and she herself put to
the bar.

‘I was alone in the world,’ she said, ‘and I had not heard of you--not a
word, for a whole year.’

Now, indeed, he got her hand into his, and triumphed over all her
pretence at indifference. She had begun to excuse herself, almost to beg
his pardon. ‘We will speak of it no more,’ he said; ‘now my Isabel is
mine again we’ll think of it no more.’

‘Oh! hush, hush, I never said that,’ she cried, evading his caress. But
he was close by her as in the old days; his voice, so much softened, in
her ears--that voice which had first woke echoes in her girl’s heart;
his hand holding hers, and her heart melting, yearning to her first
love. How could she resist not him only, but herself? She had no heart
to say him nay. After this sudden renewal what would become of her if
life settled down again in its grey colours, and he disappeared out of
it once more for ever? A month ago that subdued life, with her child in
it for sunshine, had been very sweet--but now?

And yet, in the very happiness that thus stole over her, there was a
grasp and constriction in her throat, as of guilt and pain. She was
doing something for which she could never have anything but blame from
herself or from others--for which she could not defend herself. Her
reason seemed to stand by disapproving, regretful, while the poor heart
of her made the plunge. The one was no help to the other. Her unity of
being was all torn asunder and made an end of. She did not think this in
so many words, but was vaguely, dimly conscious of it, as the happiness
stole flooding through her, penetrating every nook and corner. ‘Oh,
Horace! do you not feel as if it should not be?’ she said, with one last
effort to resist.

‘I feel that it ought to be,’ he said, drawing her close to him. ‘If you
wish me to have a hope in the world,--if you would not see me perish;
not for your sake, Isabel, that are innocent, but for my sake----’

‘Are you not innocent?’ she said, gazing at him with wonder and alarm in
her great, tear-dilated eyes.

He put his head down upon her arm, upon the sleeve of her black dress,
and kissed that. He had her hand in his, but it was not her hand which
he touched with his trembling lips. And she felt that he trembled. For
the first time his heart was so touched that the very frame felt the
vibration. It was so different from his composure of old, that it moved
Isabel beyond expression. When he answered her with an almost groan, his
voice half stifled by his attitude, she leaned over him to catch what he
said, as if it had been the most precious utterance. ‘Not innocent like
you,’ he said sighing, almost moaning as from a heavy heart. And she
melted and yearned over him like a mother over a child.

‘Oh, Horace, if you have done wrong we will set it right!’ she said,
unconscious of the vast pledge she took. And thus the contest was ended,
and all the struggles of reason made an end of it in one outburst of
that enthusiasm of pity and tenderness which raises innocent love to the
height of passion. The moment she could escape from him, Isabel rushed
to the door without saying a word. She opened it, all radiant yet all
tearful, her eyes shining, her face full of soft colour, the lines of
her mouth quivering with sobs and smiles. Outside, Jean was walking
about, very grave and almost stern, with Baby Margaret lying on her
shoulder, hushing, or trying to hush, the child to sleep. But the child
had no intention of sleeping; she lay with her head over Jean’s
shoulder, and two great grave eyes gazing intent into the summer air in
that wonderful abstraction of childhood which is so mysterious and
unfathomable. To her excited mother it seemed as if the child already
disapproved and protested, and was saddened by the event which she could
not understand. Isabel snatched her baby out of her stepmother’s arms,
who gazed at her like Margaret, and understood better why this sudden
movement was. She felt the momentary chill strike to her heart; but did
not stop to realise it. Without saying a word, she returned again into
the parlour where Stapylton sat surprised awaiting her. He, too,
understood her meaning when she reappeared with her child in her arms.
She came up to him with two great tears running over from her brilliant,
excited eyes; her mouth quivering so that she could scarcely speak; yet
smiling. She held out her baby to him without a word. Perhaps it was
that he had not expected, had not thought of this little living evidence
of the ineffaceable past. He rose to his feet with a sudden hoarse
exclamation. The joy in his face sank into a momentary wildness, almost
horror; and he trembled as the child’s unconscious, solemn eyes gazed at
him. Another pang and chill came over Isabel; she had thought he would
have taken the child from her, and kissed it, and vowed some tender vow
of protection and love. But this, too, was momentary, and passed before
she had time to realise it. He did not take the child, but he took the
mother into his arms, embracing the bewildered baby also without
touching her. ‘She shall be my child,’ he said.

His child! Isabel broke away from him, and clasped her baby to her
bosom, and sat down apart and cried. Ah, no! For the first time a
distinct sense of the claims of the other who was dead and gone, but who
was little Margaret’s father, came with a certain sickening pang to her
heart. His wife might go from him and be another man’s wife: could his
child, too, be another man’s child, and every trace of him disappear
from the earth? Ah, no!--once more, no! She said nothing, restrained,
even at that moment, by the strange, new, instinctive sense that she
must not breathe a word that could suggest prejudice or dislike to the
mind of her lover in respect to her child; but in her heart there rose a
certain jealousy of him for her dead husband’s sake, a remorse and
compunction unspeakable. She had given herself up to him; she had
appealed to him, with moving looks and gestures, to take her child too
into his heart; and yet her whole being roused into contradiction of his
claim, into dumb indignant assertion of the real father’s right, as soon
as he responded to her appeal. She sat apart from him, not looking at
him, holding little Margaret to her heart and weeping hot tears with a
vehemence which Stapylton could not understand. And she could not
understand it herself; she could do nothing but weep her passion out,
already putting restraint upon her tongue, feeling instinctively that
her freedom had gone from her, that she dared not say to him in his
moment of triumph what sudden thought had arisen in her mind. Thus it
was with poor Isabel, in the moment of what might have been her triumph
too, when she gave up her heart and her life into the hands of the only
man she had ever loved.




CHAPTER XL


They were married very shortly after--there being no reason why they
should wait. Nobody approved of them nor of their match, nor would have
been likely to do so had they waited half a dozen years. Their little
world stood round, as it were, and gazed upon them, declaring it washed
its hands of all responsibility. Her stepmother went about the house as
if she were assisting at a funeral--even little Mary turned reproachful
eyes upon her.

‘Poor wee baby! Poor wee Margret!’ she would say, caressing the child.
‘Why is she _poor_ baby?’ said Isabel, and little Mary would sigh and
shake her head. As for Miss Catherine, she made a formal proposal to
take the child under her own care, and leave Mrs. Lothian to ‘her other
duties.’

‘A bairn in the house will be an interruption,’ she said. ‘A man with a
young wife is often impatient enough of a baby of his own; and ye cannot
expect he would be more tender to another man’s child.’

‘She is my child!’ said Isabel, holding her baby tightly strained in her
arms.

‘But she is my dear old friend’s child as well,’ said Miss Catherine;
‘and she should not be brought up in ignorance of her father’s very
name.’

‘Oh, Miss Catherine, you are hard--hard!’ cried Isabel. ‘If he was your
friend, he was my husband, and knew all, and would never, never have
judged me like this!’

‘Isabel Diarmid,’ said Miss Catherine, sternly, ‘it’s little more than a
year since he was brought home to his house to die, and for a time I
thought it was your death-blow too; and now, with your baby in your
arms, you are going to wed another man. You should not speak of harsh
judgment to me.’

‘But I must,’ said poor Isabel. ‘Oh, Miss Catherine, if you would but
think how it all was. Can I put it in words? I was fond--fond of
him--and oh! but he was good to me. But you know--the difference; and if
you had said a month since--_He_ is coming; let us fly away, not to
meet him, not to bring back the past--I would have gone to the end of
the world. I would be--almost--glad--now----’

‘Of what, Isabel?’ cried Miss Catherine. ‘My dear, my dear, come, and I
will go with you, and free you from this man!’

‘I can never be free of him--now!’ she said. ‘To say the words is an
offence to me. I would have clung to my old life, to be Mr. Lothian’s
widow and little Margaret’s mother, and nothing more; but now that is
all past. If that was what you wanted, why did you let me see the one
man--the only man----’

Here Isabel stopped, silenced by her sobs and her shame. She was not
ashamed to love him, but she was ashamed to say it in words, to disclose
the sacred depths of the heart to any strange eye. She bent her crimson
tear-wet face over her child. Poor little Margaret! if she could have
known the meaning of all those looks of trouble, and passion, and
distress, at which she gazed so gravely with profound baby eyes! Miss
Catherine rose up and shook out her dress with an agitated movement, as
if shaking the very dust from it, according to scriptural injunction;
and yet she had been touched, though she would not admit it, by Isabel’s
cry.

‘You must judge for yourself,’ she said. ‘All has been said that can be
said. I cannot change your heart or settle your life for you, one way or
another. You must do as you will. You know what I think, and what a sore
blow this is to me; and I can say no more.’

And Miss Catherine swept out of the room and out of the house, leaving
poor Isabel with her face hidden and her heart torn asunder.

It did not even strike Isabel as strange that she received no overtures
of friendship from his family, nor, indeed, heard of them in any way.
Her case seemed too far removed out of the ordinary course of life to
leave her any interest in ordinary circumstances. She never thought of
his people; all who surrounded herself were hostile or disapproving, and
the effect upon her was to make her independent (as she thought) of
sympathy. The world was hard upon her, and she turned her back upon the
world.

And thus it happened that they were married, without paying any
attention to the objections and protestations of Loch Diarmid. It was in
the beginning of winter, when little Margaret was nearly a year old.
Margaret’s father had been but a year and a half dead, which was the
fact that chiefly shocked the parish.

Stapylton took his bride to a pretty sea-side village further down the
Clyde where the winter was mild, and where there were no associations to
disturb the peace of their beginning. He bore with her in her distress
at that temporary parting with her child--he bore with her anxieties
about little Margaret and longings after her, in the little interval
which he might have claimed as specially his own. He was thoughtful of
her every wish, putting aside his own comfort (she thought) for hers.
And Isabel found herself, all unawares, wrapt in that dream of happiness
which most hearts entertain one time or other, and which so few realise.
Out of her doubts she came into a sense of reality which was exquisite
to her--and she who had loved her lover without believing in him, grew,
with a blessed surprise and delight, which was like Heaven to her, to
trust as much as she loved. The change was like that from night into the
brightest day. She had reached the heights all radiant with the sun
rising, after the valley of the shadow of death.

‘You have been a bride of brides,’ he said to her one day, when a few
weeks of this dream had gone. ‘You have never asked me where we were to
go, or what we were to do. I wish I could reward you for your trust, my
love, and take you to a fine castle, and say you were queen----’

‘It was not that,’ said Isabel, ‘don’t praise me too much. It was
because I had so much in my mind I forgot. But, Horace, it is trust
now.’

‘And that is all I want,’ he said, ‘and we can settle together where we
are to go.’

‘But you have your own home?’ said Isabel.

‘I sold that; did I never tell you? I have no ties but you now,’ he
said. ‘I meant to have gone to America--two years ago. Shall we go now?
or shall we stay in your own country? or what are we to do?’

‘I have been a fool,’ cried Isabel, ‘to think of nothing all this time.
But you must have had plans of your own.’

‘Yes, to disappear out of the world if you would not have me,’ he said;
‘but since I knew you would have me, everything else has gone out of my
head.’ And then she clasped his arm with both her hands, and they walked
on forgetting everything, even their plans. Oh, how different it was
from the tender quiescence with which she had accepted the minister’s
love! That had been but a dream and this was life.

They went on together wandering along the beach which was lit up by all
the glories of the sunset. She too happy to think of anything; he
absorbed in her.

‘Oh, Horace, how different everything is!’ she said. Her heart was full
and spoke out of its abundance. ‘If I could have thought this would ever
come in those weary days when I looked for you, and you stayed away
from me----’

‘But you forgot me, Isabel.’

‘Did I forget you? Oh, how I wearied for you, Horace!’ There was
something like guilt in the confession; but the meaning in her mind was
different from his conception of it. The time in which she ‘wearied’ for
him had not been that pure, calm, cloistered year of her marriage, when
all vain thoughts and wishes had been hushed in the unspeakable quiet.
She had not thought of him then. She had been faithful and true as an
angel to her father-husband, whose love surrounded her like a
dwelling-place, and kept her pure from all the soils of earth. So
detached was that period from her life that she did not even remember it
while she spoke. It was a vision, a trance, a world apart. But in the
other agitated world of her young lonely life it seemed now as if there
had been but one thought, and that was him. ‘You left me all that
year--all that weary, weary year, after our Margaret was taken from me,’
she said, looking up at him with her tender, shining eyes; ‘and I
thought I would break my heart.’

‘And at the end of it--’ he said, ‘shall I remind you, Isabel, how you
showed your love to me? or shall we let by-gones be by-gones, and speak
of it no more?’

‘How I showed my love for you?’ said innocent Isabel--innocent,
heartless, ungrateful--and yet, in her heart, loyal, after their
degrees, to all affections. She looked in his face with genuine
surprise. And then, all at once, with a scorching blush remembered what
he meant.

‘He was so good to me,’ she murmured, with downcast looks; ‘oh, so kind,
like my father! What could I do? It was different. Never, never, could
he have been--like you.’

Stapylton drew her to his side with a shudder. ‘We’ll speak of it no
more,’ he said; ‘I could not trust myself, Isabel; one moment of my life
I was in Hell--and it was by seeing you----’

‘Seeing me?’ she said, aghast.

‘With him--more lovely than I ever dreamt of--in London--at the opera.
My God! when I think of it,’ said the young man, with a blackness
impenetrable to her anxious gaze coming over his face.

‘Oh, Horace! was it you? Oh, was it you? There was something there that
made me miserable. Oh, my Horace!’ she said, with pity, and remorse, and
terror, clinging to his arm.

‘It was Hell!’ he said, wiping his forehead, upon which great drops of
moisture were standing. ‘I had been forgetting as best I could--till
then. It was Hell; but this is Heaven,’ he added, after a pause, holding
her closer. Isabel, terrified and appalled, clung to him, gazing, with
her wistful eyes, into his face. ‘It is all past now,’ she said,
clinging close to him, with her hands clasped on his arm.

‘My darling! and this is Heaven!’

One evening, a week later than the conversation we have just recorded,
it happened unfortunately that the cry of a child in one of the cottages
awoke the heart of the young mother within her. Her maternity had been
slumbering, but was not weakened by absence from her child. ‘If I had
but my baby!’ she sighed softly, half to herself, without thinking--as,
indeed, she ought to have done--what an interruption such an exclamation
must have been to any young man’s love-dream.

He said something--she could not distinguish what; but there was
impatience in the tone, and it jarred upon her. He quickened his pace,
too, out of the lover’s ramble, drawing her along with him. When Isabel
thought of it, she saw, with a new-born power of putting herself in his
place, that it was cruel to bring in the baby at that moment; but at
first it hurt her, and brought a little pang into her heart.

‘Cannot you be content with me for a little?’ he said; and then there
was a pause, and they both turned, by instinct, to their lodgings. It
was a winter night; but there are nooks along the coast where the soft
west, even in Scotland, cheats the visitor into dreams which would
better become the south. The sun was setting behind the Arran hills,
lighting up all the horizon with a brilliant wintry glory. The tints
were deeper, the gold more dazzling, than in summer; and far away
stretched the sea, blue as steel, and brimming over with a rounded
fullness, as if it could hold no more. The night air blew somewhat chill
in their faces: perhaps it was that alone which made Isabel so cold and
so willing to return.

‘If we were to go away there,’ Stapylton said, pointing across the
steel-blue glistening water, ‘it would be hard work exposing a baby to
such a voyage. Could you make up your mind, Isabel, to leave her at
home?’

‘Leave--my child!’ she cried, with a little shriek; and her joy all at
once seemed to die suddenly out of her heart.

‘I do not say so,’ said Stapylton; ‘I am only making a suggestion. At
her age it would be hard upon her. You could not get milk for her, nor
anything. Poor child! If you could trust her to anyone at home----’

‘Oh, Horace, ask me anything but that,’ said Isabel, clinging to his
arm.

‘Well, well,’ he said, subduing his impatience, as her quickened senses
could discern, by an effort, ‘I am not asking you to do it; I am only
suggesting what might be for her good.’

And then they went in, and a change came over the heavens and the earth
to Isabel. It was not that he had changed: he was as anxious to be good
to her, to save her all annoyance, to make her happy, as ever. It was
that a note, which jarred upon the perfect happiness she had begun to
rise into, had been struck, as it were, unawares. Her husband was still
her lover, still full of fond delight in her, and eager to please her;
but a meaning she could not quite fathom, a purpose which was not made
clear to her, seemed to be under his love and his fondness--now more,
now less clearly visible from that day. He spoke a great deal of
America, pointing out all its advantages to her; and Isabel, who had no
dear friends to leave behind her, and of whom her neighbours all
disapproved, was not disinclined to think of emigration. But then there
were the discomforts of the voyage, upon which he insisted with
ever-strengthening force of words.

‘I would never hesitate if we were alone; but the child necessitates a
maid,’ he said, ‘and the maid brings other troubles in her train.’

‘But I want no maid; I can take care of my child without any help,’
cried Isabel.

‘And if you did that how much should I see of you?’ he said, with an
almost sneer. ‘No, Isabel, I don’t want to be disagreeable, but my wife
must be my wife, and not a baby’s nurse.’

‘She will soon be walking,’ said the young mother, trying with anxious
wiles to recommend her child. ‘She would soon be--a help to me, Horace,
instead of a trouble.’

‘You must consider it all well,’ he said; ‘it is not just our--your own
pleasure that you must think of; you must remember what you owe to the
child. She is too young for a long voyage, Isabel; probably she might
fall ill--and die. My dear, I don’t want to frighten you--babies so
often do.’

‘Oh, Horace, not with my care!’ cried Isabel. ‘God would protect her by
sea as well as by land. The poor women have all their little children
with them. What should happen to my darling more than to the rest?’

‘But it does happen to the half of the rest,’ he said, calmly. ‘I don’t
want to frighten you, Isabel; but afterwards, if anything were to
happen, you would blame me for not telling you. And then if she lived
and grew up she might object to be severed from all her friends and her
own country. She has her friends, I suppose--her--father’s friends.’

‘She can have no friend so near as her mother,’ said Isabel, in a voice
which was scarcely audible.

‘What do you say? Of course you are her mother, my dear; but if she were
to grow up to feel herself alone in a family, she--did not belong to,
one may say--don’t you think she would reflect upon you for taking her
from her home? My darling! I did not mean to vex you; I am only saying
what you will think yourself when you look at it calmly and see it in a
reasonable light.’

‘Oh, Horace, Horace,’ cried Isabel, clasping her hands, ‘did not you say
she should be as your own? You would not take your own child from its
mother? You would not leave her behind?’

‘Why should not I,’ he said, ‘if it would be for the child’s good?’

For a moment she looked at him aghast, and then hid her face in her
hands. He towered over her in superior virtue condemning her woman’s
weakness. ‘If it were for the child’s good. It is not our own pleasure
we must think of.’ The sound of these sentiments bewildered Isabel. Was
it possible that her eagerness to keep her baby at any cost or risk was
but the selfishness of maternity? Could it be that he would actually be
so self-denying as to leave even his own child behind him, if it was
‘for its good’? Isabel’s heart protested against such virtue, and yet it
silenced her indignant cry.

‘I believe I have strength of mind enough to do it,’ he said, ‘if it was
for the child’s good. Drag her out there with you to undergo all the
hardships of a long voyage, to be exposed to disease perhaps, to be
parted from her own relations and the country in which her property
lies. If she had been unprovided for the case might be different.’

There was a shade of bitterness in his voice. Was he angry that little
Margaret’s fortune was safe and out of reach, though he himself had
taken pains to make all the arrangements? Isabel withdrew her hands from
her face, and gazed at him confused by his vehemence. What could it be
that he meant?

‘But she is very well provided for,’ he added, with meaning--‘quite a
little heiress. And her friends would never be content that her property
should go out of the country. I see a thousand difficulties in the way.
And if I were you, I would choose the most careful guardian I could get
for her, and leave her quietly at home, at least till she knows what is
what, and can decide for herself.’

‘Oh, Horace, do you remember she is my child--my only child, that I love
more than my life? If I had to leave her I would die!’ cried Isabel;
‘but I cannot leave my baby, it would be worse than leaving my life.’

‘Which shows you don’t make much account of me,’ said Stapylton. And
then he went out suddenly and left her, leaving all those suggestions to
take form and germinate within her. She threw herself down on the sofa
in the little lodging-house parlour, and hid her face in the cushions.
It would be too much to investigate what her thoughts were at this
dreadful moment. A storm raged within her moving Heaven and earth. A
hundred mocking spirits seemed to come round and gibe at her, and laugh
at her vague, splendid anticipations. Was the joy over, and the
consolation, along with the honeymoon? And were distress, and distrust,
and a consuming terror to enter in and take possession so soon?




CHAPTER XLI


When a honeymoon has been thus disturbed the idyll is over, and the only
safe thing for the two human creatures who have thus played too long the
dangerous drama of Love in Idleness is to get back with as little delay
as possible to common life and work. Most frequently it is the woman who
retards this salutary change of scene, hoping fondly that the idyll may
come back, and fearing the ordinary routine which must separate to some
extent the two existences. But Isabel was not in the innocent, primitive
position which could render such a delusion possible. She had thought
that this alone was life, and that all that went before was a dream; but
every day, as it went on, made her more and more aware that the past was
no dream, that it could not be severed from her soul, or sink into
annihilation, however rapturous and vivid the present might be. She sat
at the window of her lodging and did her fancy work, and watched her
husband’s moods, and longed to be back. Oh, to be back!--if he were but
a labouring man in a cottage going out to his wholesome work, coming in
to find everything prepared for him, his wife and his house bright with
smiles at his approach--instead of the lounging, the caressing, the
vacancy, the fits of fondness and fits of sullenness, and anxious
watching of the changes of his face.

‘Did not you once speak of a farm, Horace?’ she said with a hesitation
that was almost timidity, when he had himself burst forth into an angry
exclamation about the dullness of the place.

‘I hate this country,’ he said, with impatience; ‘but if you have made
up your mind you won’t go to America----’

‘Indeed I never said so.’

‘No, of course you never did; but it comes to the same thing. And by the
way, I bought some of Smeaton’s stock.’ he said; ‘I thought I might have
to wait and kick my heels at your door, Isabel, longer than you made me
do. You were kinder than I expected. I thought I might have had to wait,
and that I had better be doing something. I had forgotten all about
that.’

He thought he might have had to wait! The tone in which he said it was
not unkind, but there was in it that note of incipient scorn which a
woman’s ear is so fine to catch. She had yielded sooner than he
expected. She had been an easy conquest after all his wrongs to her! The
arrow went through and through Isabel’s heart. Sudden shame and
humiliation so penetrated her that all power of speech was gone for the
moment. No wonder her friends, the country-side, all who knew her,
should disapprove and look on her coldly--when even he----

‘Was it a farm in our own parish you thought of?’ she cried, faltering,
after a pause.

‘I thought of offering for Smeaton’s once,’ he said; ‘but that was on
account of you. Now I have got you, it is a different matter; but hang
it, Isabel, we can’t go on like this, you know. A man is bored to death
here. Will you make up your mind, like a brave girl, to come with me
directly and get it over, or shall we go back to Kilcranion, or
somewhere, and wait till spring? By that time you ought to have made up
your mind.’

‘Horace,’ she said, still speaking very low, ‘to every thing but one
thing I can make up my mind at once, and that one thing I can never
do--never! Don’t ask me. I cannot leave my baby behind.’

‘But, by Jove, if I insist upon it, you _must_!’ he cried, with a
certain bravado in his tone.

She got up and went to him with a glow as of hidden fire in her eyes. ‘I
will not!’ she said. ‘I will do anything--everything else you ask me,
but not this!’

With her the crisis had reached the point of desperation. But as for
Stapylton, he gazed at her for a moment, and, struck by her passion,
turned round with a shrug of his shoulders, and what he meant to be an
air of indifference. ‘For Heaven’s sake don’t make a fuss,’ he said. ‘I
hate women who make a fuss--though I think you’ve always had rather a
turn that way, Isabel. Well, never mind. It is better to wait for
spring, anyhow. I’ll run over to Kilcranion to-morrow, and engage one of
the sea-bathing houses till April. They should be cheap enough.’

‘But, Horace,’ said Isabel, with parched and trembling lips, ‘you must
understand--not then nor now, can I leave her behind me. It is but one
thing. I will do whatever you wish--whatever you tell me, except this.’

He stood eyeing her for a moment, as if uncertain how to deal with this
obstinacy. Then he turned away with once more that careless shrug of his
shoulders.

‘Of course it is the only thing I do ask,’ he said, ‘as is always the
way with women. But never mind: May is better for a long voyage than
December; and something may have happened by that time to change the
circumstances--or you may have changed your mind.’

‘What could happen, Horace? and I will never change my mind.’

‘Well, well, say no more about it,’ he said, ‘and we shall see when the
time comes.’

Next day she was left alone to think over all this, and exaggerate all
her difficulties in her own silent mind, closed up from all possibility
of help or sympathy. Stapylton went off to Kilcranion in the morning, to
look, as he said, for a house. He did not ask her to go with him, but
took it for granted that she should remain behind with her fancy work,
and be ready to receive him when he arrived by the evening boat. When
she had watched the morning boat depart which conveyed him away, and
found herself alone standing on the shore in this strange place where
she knew no one, Isabel felt herself seized upon by the strangest tumult
of feeling. She was free. His back was turned who was dearest to her,
and yet whom she had begun to fear. Oh, if she had wings like a dove to
flee to her baby! Oh, to go to Margaret!

A yearning came over her such as she could not restrain. She cried
aloud, as the sheep do on the hill, in mournfullest bleating, for the
lost lambs. Oh, her baby!--her nursling, taken out of her bosom! not by
God, which must be borne; but by a caprice--a mistake--the unkind will
of a man.

‘Will he no be in to his dinner?’ said the landlady, coming with a sharp
knock to the door, and disturbing all Isabel’s thoughts.

‘Not till the evening,’ said Isabel, hastily drying her eyes. ‘Mr.
Stapylton is coming back by the last boat.’

‘But ye’ll hae your dinner yoursel,’ said the woman. ‘Fasting’s ill for
a’body, especially for the like of you. Eh, but you’re red een, Mrs.
Stapylton! Him and you have had a little tiff afore he left.’

‘No, indeed--nothing of the sort,’ said Isabel, indignantly. ‘And I
don’t want anything, thank you. I shall not want anything till Mr.
Stapylton comes back.’

‘I never heard of a couple yet but what had a tiff whiles,’ said the
landlady, with philosophical calm; ‘especially when the man is about
the house a’ day, and naething to do. You’re no to think too much o’ ‘t.
But dry your een, like a bonnie leddy, and gie him a smile when he comes
hame.’

‘Indeed you are quite mistaken, I assure you,’ cried Isabel, half crying
in her excitement, but trying to smile.

‘I have seen an awfu’ heap o’ couples in my day,’ said the woman,
shaking her head in the composure of superior penetration. ‘And the
fonder they are of ilk ither, ay the more like to have a tiff; but
you’ll see it will a’ be blown past if ye gie him ane o’ your bonnie
smiles when he comes hame.’

If there is anything which can intensify the gloom of one of those
tragic contentions which sometimes rend man and wife asunder, it is this
gleam of kindly, consolatory ridicule from without, throwing over the
deadly combat the _fausse air_ of a lovers’ quarrel. Poor Isabel could
not cry after this interruption. How far had she floated beyond the
light and pleasant time when a lovers’ quarrel, with its fond offence
and fonder reconciliation, was possible! She took up her worsted work,
poor mortal rag into which she had woven so many painful fancies, and
sat down by the window, and tried to make out for herself some plan of
action. But her thoughts went away from her like so many deserters, some
to follow Horace, and wonder what intentions might be in his mind in
respect to the future, and what his feelings really were towards her
child; some to haunt the well-known place in which the baby was, and
imagine every little detail of its existence. The little rooms at the
Glebe came before her like an island of calm in the stormy ocean upon
which she had launched herself; should she ever recover that peace, or
such peace as that--should she ever come to have any security in her
life again? And then her mind, which was so running over with thought as
to be incapable of thinking, suddenly turned and caught at the poor
landlady’s homely bit of philosophy: ‘Dry your een, like a bonnie leddy,
and gie him a smile when he comes hame.’ Yes, she would give him a
smile; she would crush down every suspicion--every terror; she would
take it for granted--absolutely for granted--that he meant all good and
no evil. She would smile upon him, and ignore everything that was not
love and kindness--and surely love would conquer in the end.

This she said to herself, with a pathetic smile, wiping away the
moisture which would come to the corners of her eyes; and then went out
anxious, abject, ready to put herself under his feet, to meet the lord
and master whose yoke she had wilfully taken upon her. She took a walk
first against the wind with the unconscious craft of weakness, until the
colour was kindled in her cheek, and the light brightened in her eyes.
He was more fond of her when she looked best. This strange,
half-flattering, half-humiliating fact Isabel had already found out. And
she must use every weapon now for the struggle which was a matter of
life and death.

The effort was rewarded. When she went to the boat, like any Odalisque,
having done all she knew to heighten the effect of her simple beauty,
she perceived by her husband’s first glance that she had succeeded. He
looked at her with a fondness which had begun to die out of his eyes.
‘What have you been doing to yourself?’ he said; ‘you are looking quite
lovely. You have not suffered much from my absence. It is nice, after
all, to have such a little wife to come home to. Come, and I’ll tell you
all I’ve been about.’

And they sauntered down, arm in arm, towards their lodging, feeling,
after all, as if it had been only a ‘tiff.’ Only a lovers’ quarrel! was
that all? and no harm in the heart of the fond young husband, nor fear
in that of the wife?

‘Shouldn’t you like to go to the old place?’ he said, ‘first? You can go
if you like while I settle some other affairs. I’ll take you to-morrow
if you like, and bring a gig for you to take you to Kilcranion in the
evening. Will that please you? You see I am not so bad as you thought.’

‘Oh, Horace, as if I ever thought you were bad; as if you ever were
anything but good to me, and full of love and kindness!’ said Isabel,
like a slave, trembling and glowing with happiness and with tears in her
eyes.

‘You may be sure that is what I always mean,’ he said, in his lordly,
condescending way; ‘and now you know how to make me do anything you
like. Look as lovely as you are looking now and be sweet to me, and you
can’t think how much I’ll do to please you, my pretty darling!’ He
looked down upon her with such glowing eyes that Isabel was confused
with the sudden revulsion. Could she doubt him after this? She clasped
her hands on his arm and lifted her face to his, full of beseeching,
flattering, appealing tenderness. If that was how to win him, then it
should be that way; and if there was a little vague pang of she knew not
what mingled with the sweetness, why then it must be herself who was to
blame? Thus the transition from the old minister’s princess to the young
husband’s ‘pretty darling’ was made in a confusing, bewildering sort of
way. Una changed into Scheherazade or Zuleika all at once, without any
preparation, no doubt would have felt the change bewildering. And so
did Isabel. But he was very tender to her and full of caressing
fondness, and she was to be taken to her baby to-morrow. Was not that
happiness enough to obliterate all lesser evils?




CHAPTER XLII


The morning came so much wished for, in a blaze of wintry sunshine
befitting such a joyful day. Kilcranion was a village on the other side
of the hills from Loch Diarmid, which lived upon the summer visitors to
‘the saut-water,’ and shut up its houses all the winter through, so that
Stapylton had been hailed as an angel of light, when he offered to take
one of them, and had every difficulty smoothed out of his way. He was to
go there when he had taken Isabel to the Glebe, and complete the
necessary arrangements about the house, and would come for her, he said,
in the evening to take her home.

Her heart beat so loudly when once more the steamer carried her up Loch
Diarmid, that the very power of speech seemed to forsake her. This time
there was no kind, homely face looking out from the pier to welcome her.
No one knew she was coming. The village folk gave her a gruff ‘good-day’
as she passed, with a look towards her husband, half of scorn, half of
disgust. There was no sign of life in the windows of the House, as they
passed Lochhead together. People on the road stared at her, and then
turned round and stared again, disapproving of her, unfriendly to him.
Isabel had known it all, and believed that she had accepted it, half in
scorn, half in resignation; but she felt the difference when it was thus
brought before her. And Stapylton’s face had clouded over the moment
they set foot on the shores of Loch Diarmid. A sullen shadow came over
him. He walked with his eyes cast down, saying little to her, taking no
notice of anything around.

‘I hate the place!’ he said, with angry energy; ‘if you had taken my
feelings into consideration you would never have asked me to come back.’

‘Oh, Horace!’ cried poor Isabel, faltering, ‘let me get my baby, and let
us go wherever you like! I will never more ask you to come back.’

‘Always that baby!’ he said, with something that sounded like an oath;
and thus all the flutter of joy was stilled in her heart as they went up
the hill.

But when she entered the familiar house, and, rushing in all eager and
breathless, found herself by the side of the homely cradle in which
little Margaret was sleeping, the young mother’s heart felt ready to
burst with delight and misery. She fell softly on her knees beside it,
and worshipped. Soft tears gushed to her eyes, a soft transport filled
her. ‘Oh, my baby, my darling!’ she cried, putting down her head upon
the little coverlet, with other inarticulate cries, like the cooings of
a dove. When she recollected herself, and looked up with a sudden pang
of terror, she caught her husband’s eye bent upon her with that look of
incredulity which goes to a woman’s heart. He thought it was a piece of
acting for his benefit. He did not believe in the reality of any such
overflowing of the heart over an unresponsive child. He would have been,
indeed, more offended had he thought it real, than he was by the
supposed simulation. The one would have proved his wife to be capable of
loving something else as well as she did himself; the other was but the
homage of weakness to power. ‘You think you can take me in with all
this,’ he said, with a laugh. ‘It is very good acting, Isabel; but I
know better than that.’

‘Acting?’ she said, rising slowly to her feet, with wonder so great that
it almost overwhelmed the pain.

‘Yes,’ he said, taking her into his arms. ‘Do you think I don’t know
that not for all the babies in the world would you risk parting with
me?’

She gave a little cry, which he did not understand; and all the sages in
the world could not have explained to Horace Stapylton the nature of
those tears which his wife shed on his shoulder, with her face buried in
her hands; the anguish--the despair of ever understanding, he her, or
she him; the sudden fiery indignation, the bitter disappointment, the
struggle of love with love, and blame and pity. Oh, that he whom she
loved could feel so! Oh, that he could be so little, so---- and then she
stopped herself even in her thoughts, and moaned aloud.

‘Well, well,’ he said, superior and compassionate, ‘don’t take it so
much to heart, if I’ve found you out. I’ll go now, and at four o’clock
I’ll come back for you; but mind you are ready, for I don’t want to be
driving about the country in a moonless night.’

When he went away, Isabel felt that she drew a long breath of relief.
She was glad, and yet how miserable it was to feel herself glad! She
dropped wearily into a chair, and sat and gazed upon her sleeping child.
She was thus seated in a kind of stupor, with eyes blinded with tears,
when Jean came into the room. Jean had been mollified, in spite of
herself, by the care her stepdaughter had taken to provide for her. Even
such a benefit could not purchase her approval of the marriage; but that
and Isabel’s absence, and a certain something in her eye, which did not
speak of perfect satisfaction in her new lot, had touched Jean’s kindly
heart.

‘Isna she a picture?’ she cried, placing herself behind Isabel with
uplifted hands of worship; ‘and as thriving and as firm as heart could
desire. Eh, Isabel! I thought she would have broken her bit heart the
day you went away. There would be ay a look at the door, and stretching
out her arms to everyone that came nigh, and ay another wail when the
poor infant was disappointed. I got an awfu’ fear that it might bring on
something--but sin syne she’s been as good and as bonnie as you see her
now.’

‘My little darling!’ was all the young mother could say.

‘Hoots, dinna greet: it’s meeting and no parting now,’ said Jean, with a
keen look of inspection. And then there was a pause. Isabel had not the
heart to move nor to speak, nor even to take her child into her arms.

‘If it had been me I would have had her afore now! Hoots, never mind
waking her; whisht, my bonnie lamb! Your little bed’s saft, but no so
saft as your ain mother’s bosom. There she is to ye,’ said Jean, putting
the rosy, half-awakened child into her mother’s arms. The good woman
stood and gazed at the group with a cordial, kindly pleasure. ‘Poor
lass! poor bairn!’ she said to herself as she watched the mother’s
passion of kisses and tears and unintelligible words: vague suspicions
were creeping about Jean’s mind. This close strain of passion, those
tears which did not dry up as they ought to have done, or give place to
smiles, filled her with alarm--an alarm, it must be confessed, not
unmixed with satisfaction, for had not she, in common with all the
country-side, declared that of such a marriage no good could come?

‘Mr. Stapylton, he’s away to Kilcranion?--ye’re to bide there, I hear?
but what for could you no come hame, Isabel, to your own house?’

‘It is your house now,’ said Isabel, with an attempt at a smile.

‘Na, na, only the life-rent,’ said Jean, ‘of my ain end; and I’m awfu’
thankfu’ to have that. Am I one to come ben to the parlour and set up
for a leddy? No, my bonnie woman, it’s hers and yours a’ the days of my
life, as well as when I’m dead and gone. Him and you might have been as
comfortable here as in Johnny Gibb’s house at Kilcranion. There’s nae
accounting for tastes--but sure am I there’s no a room in it equal to
the new parlour here in the Glebe.’

‘It is only for a short time--a month or two,’ said Isabel.

‘And where are you going then, if ane might ask?’

‘We were talking of going to America,’ said Isabel, under her breath.
The child had relapsed into sleep again with its head nestled against
her breast.

‘To America!’ said Jean. ‘Eh, Isabel! that’s an awfu’ change to think
of--and the bairn----?’

‘What of the bairn?’ cried Isabel in a sudden wild panic of terror; and
gathering up her child’s rosy, dimpled limbs in her arms, she rose and
confronted her stepmother as if there could be any meaning or power in
Jean’s unconsidered words.

‘Na, Isabel, I’m meaning nothing,’ said Jean, falling back in dismay;
the sharp misery of the young mother’s tone, her desperate attitude, the
sudden mastery of her excitement over all her motherly care not to
disturb the baby, came like a revelation to her stepmother; with a
woman’s wit she seized upon the sudden pang which had come to herself,
to comfort with that, the unknown and deeper misery which thus erected
itself before her without a moment’s warning. ‘It’s just that my heart
will break to part with the darling,’ she cried, putting her apron to
her eyes.

And then Isabel calmed down and took her seat again, and shed a few
silent tears, trembling meanwhile with excitement, and the secret
something which Jean could see was ‘on her mind’ but could not divine.
She made no complaint, however, and no disclosure, but quieted herself
with a power of self-command which the homely but close observer
standing by perceived to be new developed in her. When she spoke again
it was about little Margaret’s ‘things,’ that they might be packed up
and ready when the gig came for them at four o’clock.

‘Will ye take her away with ye?’ said Jean; ‘it’s awfu’ sudden; will ye
take her this very night?’

‘Do you think I would give my darling up again?’ cried Isabel, with her
cheek pressed against the child’s cheek.

‘If you’re sure it’s for the best,’ said Jean, whose mind was really
disturbed and anxious for her stepdaughter. ‘Isabel, my bonnie woman,
I’m meaning no slight to him; but men are queer creatures. They’re no
fond whiles of a little bairn that takes up the mother’s time, even when
it’s their ain bairn; and she’ll no go to strangers. And ye canna have
her with you at night as ye used to have her. My dear, if I was you I
would take time to think.’

‘I will never part with my baby again!’ said Isabel. In the quietness
her old nature seemed to come back to her. The spell of Stapylton’s
presence began to lose its fascinations. She began again to feel that it
was still lawful for her to judge and decide for herself.

‘But if it was to make any--dispeace. I’m meaning no offence. She’s well
and safe, and ye can trust her with me. My bonnie woman! you must not do
that in haste that you’ll repent o’ before the day’s done.’

‘How should I repent of it?’ she said, hastily, but would not yield. She
had made up her mind entirely how it was to be done. She would say not a
word to her husband, but take it for granted as a thing inevitable.
Even, if she saw that to be expedient, she would cover up her baby under
her cloak, until the _trajet_ was accomplished. In one way or other,
howsoever she might be baffled, she had determined to take the child
with her. All that Jean, who saw the practical difficulties better than
she did, could succeed in settling was that Jenny Spence’s eldest
daughter, at present ‘out of a place,’ whom little Margaret knew, should
go with her to Kilcranion, to take care of her, and relieve the young
mother from constant attention to the child. Jean sent off her boy
instantly to warn Nelly Spence that she must make ready. ‘If she goes by
the afternoon boat, she’ll be at the house as soon as you,’ said Jean;
and when that was fairly accomplished, it was, as she said, a weight off
her mind.

Meanwhile, Isabel sat sunk in a quiet which was almost stupor; the past
days had been very agitating days. And now the stillness and the soft
sleep of the child, and the embracing of the old kindly house which
seemed to stretch its arms round her with a forgiving calm, and Jean’s
kindly accustomed ministrations lulled her very soul within her. The
good things she had lost came back and floated round her, bringing
something of their own peace into her heart; and all that was disturbing
and novel had passed away for a moment like a dream. She felt as if she
could have slept like the baby.

‘Sleep, my darling, if ye can,’ said Jean, compassionately, ‘you’ve been
doing more than you were able--it’s the cold air, and then the fire----
’

‘No, no,’ said Isabel, rousing up. ‘Instead of that, if you will pack up
her things, I’ll take little Margaret out for a walk, while the sun is
so warm on the braes.’

‘Weel, weel,’ said Jean, ‘ye’ll come to nae harm there _now_.’ Not now,
all the harm was over and done. ‘And that she’s no happy is written in
her face,’ Jean continued, as she watched her straying out into the
sunshine, with a spark of natural wonder that she should take that way
of spending the short day. But she was mollified when she saw that
Isabel crossed the road to the spot on the hill where it had been
Margaret’s custom to pray. ‘And she’ll maybe get good there, poor thing,
so ill as she has done for herself,’ the sympathetic woman said to
herself, looking out from the door. She had watched wilful Isabel so
often taking her wayward course from that door; sometimes to meet her
‘lad,’ as in the old times upon the braes; sometimes demure and stately
to join Miss Catherine in some long longed-for pleasure; then leaning
on her husband’s arm, the serene minister’s wife; then mournful in her
widow’s weeds. ‘I understood a’ but this,’ Jean said, meditatively, to
herself. ‘But that she’s no happy is written in her face.’

The child was now awake, smiling upon her, after the first momentary
blank of forgetfulness, and had made her heart leap by saying, or
stammering, ‘Mamma,’ the accomplishment which all this time Jean had
been labouring to teach her. Little Margaret danced and babbled in her
mother’s arms, and stretched out her hands to the running burn and to
the bare branches of the other Margaret’s rowan-tree, when Isabel paused
beneath it. She had meant to bring her great trouble out with her there,
and to ask God’s counsel, when she left the cottage; but the baby’s
mirth beguiled the poor young mother. She sat down on the grassy seat,
and forgot everything, and played with her child. What good would
thinking do her? What good (she had almost said, and stopped herself
with a pang of reproach) would prayer do her? Oh, if she could but pray!
and then, in her agitation, she caught at the momentary delight that was
nearest to her, and played with her baby, and on the edge of the
precipice forgot her terror. Then, as softer and softer thoughts gained
her mind, Isabel rose up again, and, half stealthily, went past her own
door and up the hill-side to the spot where she had so often met her
lover under the little birch-tree. The grass and the heather were heavy
with wintry moisture, but she was unaware of it. And again her head grew
giddy, and everything looked to her like a dream. Was it Stapylton’s
wife who was standing there under the tree, where he had been so fond
and so cruel? Was this his child in her arms? Was her life one and
indivisible, or a thing of shreds and patches, broken into fragments?
She stood and grew giddy with the thought, looking over the wintry
braes, while little Margaret caught at the drooping branches of the
birch, and laughed at the shower of dewy spray which they scattered over
her. Her baby laugh seemed to her mother to wake echoes all over earth
and Heaven--echoes that reached the churchyard, where _they_ were lying
who would have defended the child--which might reach the child’s enemy
on the road miles away, and put evil thoughts in his mind against the
innocent, unconscious creature. And her child’s enemy was her own lover
and husband--could such a misery be?

She was standing thus as in a dream, when a voice in her ear made her
start, and spring aside in mortal terror. She could not have told what
she was afraid of. Something--anything--ghosts in the daylight; and what
she saw was not unlike a ghost. It was Ailie in her white dress, with a
shawl over her head--Ailie, who had fallen as entirely out of Isabel’s
self-absorbed musings as if she had never been.

‘What are you doing here, Isabel Diarmid?’ she said, ‘your courting’s
past, and you’re married to another man. You have chosen this world, and
you’re satisfied. What are you doing here?’

‘Oh, Ailie! you frighten me,’ said Isabel, holding her child fast in her
arms.

‘Many a time I frighten mysel,’ said Ailie, ‘I come and go, and I carena
where. I am seeking the Lord and I canna find Him. Something says in my
heart Lo here and Lo there--but there’s nae sound of His coming, though
I’m ay listening night and day?’

‘And are you no better?’ said Isabel, in her bewilderment: ‘and is there
no word of Mr. John?’

‘Oh, aye, Mrs. Lothian, she’s better,’ said old Janet Macfarlane, coming
forward nimbly from among the heather. The old woman was worn with
anxiety and excitement, but kept her undaunted courage. ‘I beg your
pardon, I canna mind your new name; they’re awfu’ fashious thae English
names. Mrs. Diarmid’s a hantle better, since the letters came from
Ardnamore. He’s in Paris, he’s among his grand friends. I canna
understand what it’s a’ about myself, but he says it’ll be in the papers
if he shouldna hae time to write: and if your goodman should get an
English paper, maybe you would let us hear. She’s real weel, and taking
her walks, her and me, like the auld times,’ said Ailie’s champion. She
met Isabel’s eye steadily, as she told this lie of pride and love. Ailie
for her part took no notice. She was standing by Isabel’s side, looking
with wistful eyes on the wild landscape, and seeing nothing; a creature
distraught, and torn out of all the common woes and rules of life--but
not mad, though even her mother thought so--at least not yet.

‘I was never ill,’ she said softly, ‘I want but one thing, Isabel, but
that I canna get. I would be as well as you, and as light-footed, and as
ready to do whatever there was to do--if I had but light from the Lord.’

‘Has it never come back?’ said Isabel, wistfully, not knowing what to
say.

‘Whiles I think it will never come back,’ said Ailie, shaking her head,
‘and whiles there is a glimmer of hope. My mother’s ay at my side night
and day; and if she is that kind, would He break His word? Isabel, it’s
an awfu’--awfu’ trial! What are your trials to that? To be disappointed
in your God! But if _she_ is that kind, would He break His word? I never
was a mother myself. But if you were tempted with a’ this world could
bestow, would you give up your little bairn?’

A cry burst out of Isabel’s heart. She clasped her child closer, and
sprang apart from the strange questioner.

‘Oh, no never--never! not if I should die.’

‘And you’re but a young thing, and she’s but an old worldly woman,’ said
Ailie, with solemn calm, ‘and would He break His word that’s above a’?’

Isabel’s heart, which had been momentarily still, beat so loudly at this
unthought-of anticipation of her inmost struggle that she could not
speak, but only gaze with awe and troubled wonder, while Ailie glided
away as she came without another word. She passed along among the
heather, threading her way by instinct, a strange, ghostly white figure,
with her mother like a shadow beside her. Thus the shuttle which wove
out one of those lives, shot across the other once again, making a
mystic connection between them. Isabel went home, hushed and silent,
after this strange encounter. The wonder of it overpowered her, and
silenced her own thoughts.

‘You have told me nothing about Ailie,’ she said, when she was once more
seated in the little parlour before the cheerful fire.

‘She’s taken to wandering far and near,’ said Jean, ‘ay in her white
gown. Some say she’s clean daft, poor lass; but I canna think it’s as
bad as that. She’s awfu’ good to the poor folk, and whiles will stop and
say a word--if you’ll believe me, Isabel--mair like our Margret’s words
and mair comforting and reasonable than when she spoke in _the power_.’

‘But her heart is broken,’ said Isabel, with a sigh, which came from the
depths of her own.

‘And there’s something, they say down by, in this week’s paper about Mr.
John. But you’ll hear better than me. Some awfu’ business there’s been
in France about killing the king. They say he’s one of thae
revolutionaries. But I havena seen the paper myself,’ said Jean. ‘I’m
thinking I hear the wheels of the gig coming up the brae.’

Isabel gave a hurried glance up in her face, and another at her child. A
glance not of suggestion, but of speechless, bewildered appeal.

‘Go out and meet your man, my bonnie woman,’ her stepmother added
hurriedly, ‘and give me the bairn.’

Not another word was said between them on the subject. There was no
confidence made, no counsel asked. But Isabel understood that her
stepmother saw vaguely, yet truly, what was in her heart. The wintry
afternoon was growing dark; the stars were already half visible in the
frosty sky.

‘Make haste, for it is getting late!’ Stapylton shouted from the door.
Isabel put on her own outdoor dress with trembling hands, while Jean
dressed her child. Then she took little Margaret into her arms under her
cloak. Her face was deadly pale with excitement, and resolution, and
terror. She put up her white lips to her stepmother to kiss her, though
such salutations were rare between them--and then went out firmly with
her precious hidden burden--her heart bounding wildly against her
breast.

‘Make haste, Isabel!’ her husband shouted from the gig. He did not get
down to help her into it, having already begun to glide out of the
habits of a lover. And, after an awful moment of fear, she found herself
seated by his side, without remark on his part. The baby moved and
struggled under the cloak, but Stapylton took no notice. ‘What are you
putting in now to delay us?’ he cried to Jean, who was placing the
child’s little basket of ‘things’ behind. He was full of impatience to
be off, and thought of nothing else for the moment. ‘It will be quite
dark before we get home,’ he said, with almost a scowl at the delay.

Jean stood and gazed after them as they darted from the door. ‘Oh,
canny, canny, down the brae!’ she cried. She had not shed a tear over
the parting, but her heart was heavy and sore. ‘She’ll repent it but
once, and that will be a’ her life,’ she said to herself, as the black
speck disappeared over the hill, ‘and it’s begun already. I ay said it,
if that were ony satisfaction; but she never would listen to me.’




CHAPTER XLIII


There was no moon, and the night grew speedily dark; and the road was no
smooth, level highway, but a road up hill and down dale, as was natural
to the country. Stapylton was so absorbed with its difficulties that he
took no notice of the little traveller whose presence could not long be
concealed.

‘What is it?’ he said, when little Margaret with a struggle made herself
visible from under the cloak.

‘It is only the child,’ Isabel answered in the easiest tone she could
attain to, though her very lips were trembling with excitement, and
resolution, and alarm. What he said was lost in the night breeze which
swept past them as they flew on against it. She thought he too had taken
little Margaret’s presence for granted, and her heart seemed to go back
with a leap to its natural place in her breast. But the fact was that
Stapylton’s mind was at the moment too much occupied to have time to
think of the child. When she looked up at him again, she saw that his
brow was contracted, his lips firmly set together, a look of oppression
and almost terror in his face.

‘This confounded country of yours!’ he said, ‘it is bad enough in
daylight, but it’s horrible in the dark. Why did you keep me waiting so
long at that infernal cottage-door?’ But he did not seem to notice the
answer Isabel made in her dismay. And they swept along through the dark
with nothing visible but the pale stars in the sky, and the great
shadows of the hills, and glimmer of the larger loch on the other side
of the braes to which they were descending; and nothing audible but the
sharp din of the horse’s hoofs on the road, and Baby Margaret’s little
murmurs as she nestled to her mother’s side. The curious oppression in
Stapylton’s face made Isabel, too, hold her breath, though otherwise she
would have felt no alarm upon the well-known way. But past agitation had
unstrung her, and the thought of the struggle to come. ‘Would you give
up your little bairn?’ Ailie’s words were still ringing in her ears, and
she kept repeating to herself over and over, ‘Never, oh, never, if I
should die!’ While this was going through her mind, Isabel, seated by
her husband’s side, trembled with the question, What would he think if
he knew her thoughts? What might he be thinking even now, so close to
her that she could not move without touching him, so far off that her
profoundest skill could not fathom what was in his mind?

It was thus that they reached the first place which in their new-married
life they could call home. With a relief which an hour before she could
not have believed possible, Isabel placed her baby in the hands of Nelly
Spence, who was waiting for them at the door.

‘You’ll take great care of her,’ she said, whispering, as she put the
child into her arms.

‘Eh, aye, I’ll take awfu’ care of her,’ was the answer.

And the young mother was glad to be thus relieved, to go to her husband,
and do her best to conciliate and please him. The fire was burning
brightly in the little bare dining-room, and the table spread; and
Horace, still with cloudy looks, sat in a great armchair thrust back
into the shadow. It was not home, but yet it was more like home than the
honeymoon lodgings. It was, at least, their own house. She had come to
him giving up her baby, feeling that such a sacrifice was his due; and,
perhaps, she expected that some special word or look of tenderness
should reward her. But it was soon evident that his mood was very far
from lover-like. He burst out when she came up to the fire and stood
with her face turned towards him in the full glow of the firelight. Her
agitation had roused all the dormant expression in Isabel’s face. Her
eyes looked larger, and were full of light and shadow. A tremulous
colour went and came on her cheek. Her mouth was all trembling and
eloquent with suppressed feeling, and the glimmering of the firelight
gave a certain increase of effect to the whole. He did not even look at
her at first, but suddenly burst out:--

‘I hate this country of yours! I always did hate it! I don’t know what
made me such an ass as to consent to stay. By Jove! I wonder if any
woman was ever worth----’

‘What, Horace?’ she said, trying to laugh.

‘The things we do for them,’ he said. ‘You are a kind of demons with
your pretty faces. You tempt us to do a thousand things that if we had
our wits about us----’

‘Horace, we have surely something more than pretty faces? Is that all
you care for?’ said Isabel.

‘Well, never mind,’ he said, coarsely; ‘if you were plain, you would not
ask such a question; but if you had been plain, Isabel, you should never
have been my wife.’

He expected her to be pleased with the rough compliment: and, pleased
himself, roused up a little out of the shadow, and suffered his face to
relax and looked at her as at a picture. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you should
never have been my wife. I never thought, even when I admired you most
in the old times, that you would have turned out so handsome, Isabel;
and when I look at you I don’t mind----’

‘What is it you don’t mind?’

‘All you have cost me,’ he said, falling back into the shadow. ‘By
Heaven that night at the opera, when I saw you dazzling--you whom I had
been persuading myself to believe was only a pretty country girl. And
there you were like a queen of beauty. I shall never forget how I felt
that night.’

‘Oh, don’t speak of it!’ she cried. ‘I cannot bear it; don’t remind me
of that.’

‘If I could bear it, you may,’ he said, with a certain tone of contempt;
‘but I don’t mind, you are worth it all, my dear; and now let us have
some dinner. I have got you in spite of everything, and at least we may
be jolly to-night.’

So they sat down to their dinner, which Stapylton himself had taken the
trouble to order; and not a word was said about the child. He had
accepted it as a natural part of their household, she thought; and
Isabel’s heart grew a little lighter with every word he spoke. He had
forgotten, no doubt, all that had been said in a different mood; and she
began to flatter herself it had been but a passing moment of ill-temper;
and that now the child was under his roof, there would be no further
comment upon it. A feverish gaiety took possession of her as she caught
at this thought. She made a conscious effort to amuse him, stirring up
all her dormant powers. She told him of her meeting with Ailie, and did
not wince at his rude comments upon the woman he had no understanding
of. She was so anxious to please him that she could have borne anything
he chose to say. She was lowering to his level, though she did not know
it; a certain pleasure in the fact of being able to make him laugh, and
turn his thoughts from more serious matters, took possession of her. Oh,
if she could only have gone on telling him stories like Scherazade, and
occupying him with any romance or trifle till they had embarked on their
voyage, and little Margaret under her shawl had been conveyed into the
ship unnoticed! It was the first piece of practical falsehood she had
ever attempted, and it had been successful beyond her hopes; and in the
haste and agitation of the moment it seemed to her that this was the
soundest policy, and that there was no other course before her to
pursue.

‘That woman was always mad,’ said Stapylton, ‘I could see it from the
first; but, by Jove! she must be cunning, too. To get that mad fellow to
marry her and make a lady of her, as they say, was the cleverest thing I
know. What a fool he must have been, to be sure!’

‘Oh, Horace! you don’t understand Ailie,’ said Isabel.

‘I understand her a great deal better than you do, my dear; though I
believe in your heart, if you were to tell the truth, _you_ saw what she
was at all along. Depend upon it, there is always some meaning in those
got-up things. When I remember how you were all taken in, and expected
your sister to get better too--when anybody with half an eye could see
she was going as fast as she could go.’

‘Oh, Horace! don’t speak of that,’ cried Isabel. ‘They say there is
something in the papers about Mr. John--something that has happened in
France. There is the newspaper lying with your letters, will you open it
and see?’

‘Time enough for that,’ he said, drawing his chair to the fire. ‘By
Jove! he must have been a fool--a bigger fool than even I am, to come
down here and bury myself in this hole, all for the sake of you! You
ought to be a good wife to me, Isabel, instead of setting up your silly
little notions. You never were as happy in all your life before, _I_
know. You never had anyone to pet you before, and make a little idol of
you. And yet you go and vex me and spoil all our plans for some foolish
notion about a baby, that cares as much for the first country lass that
makes a fuss over it as it does for you. Yes, it is a true bill, my
darling. You know what a naughty little rebel you are. Now acknowledge
that in all your life you never were so happy before?’

It would be safe to say that at this moment, with her husband’s arm
round her, and his eyes glowing upon her with admiration and fondness,
Isabel had scarcely ever been more unhappy, more torn by painful
struggles. ‘Oh, Horace!’ she cried, faintly, hiding her face in her
hand. The question humiliated her. She was ashamed, mortified, offended;
and at the same time stung to the heart by the contrast between the
state of her feelings and his opinion of them. Happy! was there any
meaning in the word? But, fortunately, no thought of this crossed
Stapylton’s mind. He was full of the comfort of his dinner and his rest,
and the indigenous toddy which steamed by his elbow. Ease and that
genial influence had mollified him, and made him complacent. He took
Isabel’s confusion for the evidence of a shy rapture.

‘You were always a shy little fool,’ he said, kissing her; ‘but I know
you were never so happy before. Trust me to know it. You have never told
me the secrets of your prison-house, but I can guess them. By Jove! you
should be grateful to a man when you find yourself delivered out of that
tomb, and brought safe off here, to be made a pet of. It’s all very well
to pretend, and to make up a pretty little scene, like that you treated
me to this morning; but _I_ know you can’t care for that brat of a baby,
nor put it in comparison with me.’

‘Oh, Horace, let me love my child!’ cried Isabel. ‘I will love you all
the better--don’t take my little one from me! I will serve you on my
knees--I will study your every look, if you will but consent that I
should love my own child.’

‘And what should you do if I did not consent?’ he said, with a smile.
‘You would cry very prettily, Isabel, I know, and make a scene as all
women do, but you’d give in at the end. Now, why not give in at the
beginning, and save yourself all the trouble? Do you think there is any
doubt, my love, who would conquer at the last?’

‘Yes,’ she said, in a voice scarcely audible, trying to free herself
from his arms. ‘There is a doubt--for I might die.’

‘What has your dying to do with it? No, my love. You’ll give in to me
and do your duty, and we’ll be as happy as the day is long,’ he said,
and with another kiss let her go free. ‘Now give me the paper, and I’ll
read you the news. All sorts of things have been happening, and we have
been too happy to mind; but now, you know, it is time to think of our
duties, now we’ve come back to the world.’




CHAPTER XLIV


A day or two passed in idleness, not unlike the honeymoon idleness of
Ranza Bay. Stapylton lounged out and saw the steamer come and go, and
lounged back again with nothing to occupy him, sometimes lavishing
caresses upon his wife, sometimes sullen to her, complaining of the
delay and the time he was losing, and of being buried alive in ‘such a
hole as this.’

One morning, about a week after their establishment at Kilcranion, a
message came to Isabel from Janet Macfarlane, begging her to go to
Ailie. It was while they were seated at breakfast that the message
arrived. ‘Eelin,’ the ‘lass’ who had been witness of the first meeting
between Mrs. Lothian and her former lover, was Janet’s messenger. ‘Eh,
mem, there’s word frae Ardnamore,’ said the young woman; ‘you’ll have
heard of a’ that’s come and gone. Eh, I would have brought ye the paper
if I had thought ye didna ken. He’s joined thae radicals that are ay
plotting; and it was some awful plan to blow up the king. And Ardnamore
he’s been blown up himself instead, and it’s no thought he’ll live. And
there’s been letters. You wouldna have thought the mistress was that
taken up with him, when he was here; but she’s ta’en her bed, and we
dinna ken what to do. And auld Janet--I’m meaning Mrs. Macfarlane--has
awfu’ confidence in you. If you were to come, she thinks maybe
Ailie--eh, Gude forgive me, I’m meaning the mistress--would mind what
you would say.’

‘If you’ll wait a little, Helen,’ said Isabel, ‘I will see what I can
do.’ She went back to her husband with a little excitement. ‘You never
told me,’ she said, ‘that there was something in the papers about Mr.
John. And now they say he is dying, and I am sent for to Ailie. Poor
Ailie! she scarcely said good-bye to him when he went away; and she will
feel it now. Horace, will you get the gig and drive me over the hill, or
must I wait for the boat?’

‘Neither the one nor the other!’ he said. ‘Why should you go to every
Ailie in the country-side when they send for you? Nonsense! You have no
official position now, Isabel. You are my wife, and I won’t have you
go!’

‘But, Horace, I must!’ said Isabel, quite unsuspicious that this was the
voice of authority. ‘Poor Ailie! I had to do with her marriage, though I
did not wish it--and I was there when he went away. And I am Margaret’s
sister. There is nobody she will speak to like me. I will stay as short
a time as possible, but I could not refuse to go.’

‘By Jove! but you shall refuse to go,’ he said, ‘when I say it. If that
is what you think your duty, it is not my view. Tell the woman I’ll see
her at Jericho first! _My_ wife trotting about the country to every fool
that sends for her! No, no. Don’t say anything, Isabel. I tell you, you
shan’t go.’

She stood gazing at him with amazement so complete that there was no
room for any other feeling. Obedience after this fashion had never so
much as entered into Isabel’s conception of the duties of a wife. Her
mind was incapable of grasping this strangest new idea. ‘I am sorry you
don’t like it,’ she said; ‘but, Horace, you know--I can’t refuse.’

‘I don’t know anything of the sort,’ he said; ‘you _shall_ refuse. Here,
Jenny, Mary--whatever your name is--Mrs. Stapylton can’t come. Do you
hear? Tell your mistress, or whoever it was that sent you; she has got
something else to do than dance attendance on the parish now. Mrs.
Stapylton is not going; do you hear? Now, take yourself off and shut the
door!’

‘If the leddy will tell me herself,’ said Eelin, standing her ground.
Cæsarism of this description was unknown on Loch Diarmid, and naturally
the very sight of a rampant husband awoke the spirit of the female
messenger. ‘Oh, mistress,’ she added, turning with sudden softening to
Isabel, who sat dumb with crimson cheeks and downcast eyes, ‘dinna
forsake us in our trouble. There is no one on a’ the Loch that can be of
any help to us but you.’

‘Go ben to the kitchen and get a cup of tea after your long walk,’ said
Isabel; ‘and I will come and speak to you, Helen. Go now and sit down
and rest.’

Her voice was very low, she did not raise her eyes; but the woman
understood and had compassion, and obeyed her without a word. A sudden
harsh assumption of authority is a dangerous matter in any relationship,
and perhaps most dangerous of all in that difficult transition from the
love-dream to the ordinary conditions of life. Isabel’s proud and
delicate spirit had never yet received so strange a shock. She sat dumb
for the moment, quivering so painfully with the blow that she was
unable to speak.

‘You may say what you like to her besides,’ said Stapylton; ‘but this
you must just make up your mind to say, my love--that you shan’t go.’

There was a certain air of smiling insolence in the young man’s face. He
was making his first experiment in the matter of sovereignty--beginning
as he meant to end, he would have said.

‘Is this how it is to be?’ said Isabel, with quivering lips. ‘I--don’t
understand. It never came into my mind before. Oh, Horace, is this how
it is to be between us? It could never be any pleasure to me to do what
you don’t like; but is it to be you who are to judge always, and never
me?’

‘Didn’t you promise to obey me, you little rebel?’ he said, still with
artificial playfulness; ‘and, of course, I mean to be obeyed. You may
trust me not to give up my right.’

‘But not as a baby obeys,’ said Isabel, in a voice which was scarcely
audible.

He got up with a laugh which jarred on all her excited nerves.

‘I don’t mind how you make it out,’ he said; ‘but I mean you to do what
I like, and for this once you had better make up your mind. You shan’t
go!’

It was at this moment--moved by what evil suggestion it is impossible to
tell--that Nelly Spence, who had gradually been growing to a fever point
of indignation at the little notice taken of her baby, suddenly opened
the door of the room in which such a momentous discussion was going on.
They both turned round, and for a moment nothing was visible; then
little Margaret, staggering in her first baby run, came swift and
unsteady through the open door, her attendant appearing behind her,
stretching out sheltering arms. ‘She’s walking!’ said Nelly, with a
shriek of delight. And Isabel, for the moment forgetting all her wounds,
gave a cry of instinctive joy, and, turning round, held out her arms.
Stapylton turned away with an oath. He went to the window, turning his
back on the scene--so pretty a scene!--the young mother melting into a
sudden transport out of her first hard passage of beginning life; the
young nurse, half frantic with exultation, the little fairy creature
rushing into the arms held out for it. Never was happy household yet, in
which such a moment does not detach itself from the blank of years like
a picture--sweet, evanescent, innocent delight! But here the bonds of
nature were twisted awry. Isabel took her child into her arms with a
throb of happiness, and then signed to its nurse to go away, and turned
round with a deeper pang of pain. It banished even her own humiliation
out of her mind. She gazed wistfully at her husband, not knowing whether
to speak to him or remain silent--longing to say, ‘I will be your slave,
only tolerate my child.’

‘Do you want to drive me mad with that man’s child?’ he said, turning
round upon her with a look of hatred and horror which struck her with
consternation; and then went out of the room, out of the house, without
another word. She saw him go rapidly past the window while she still sat
thunderstruck, holding her baby. Poor Isabel! And this conflict was to
last all her life.

She did not know how long she sat thus silent, with a thousand thoughts
passing through her mind. She was not thinking; she was stunned, and
incapable of any mental action. Her thoughts came and went
independently, presenting their arguments before her like so many unseen
pleaders. Little Margaret slid from her arms to the floor, and sat there
playing with anything that came to hand, gurgling with sweet rills of
laughter, sweet murmurs, and those attempts at words which mothers know
how to translate. But she took no notice. Slowly the invisible advocates
delivered their pleas, and set forth all their reasonings. There rose
before her a vision of what must be done, of what it was impossible to
do. She was his wife; she had counted the cost and taken the risk, and
now the forfeit was required of her. The time had been when she was
little Margaret’s mother before all; but she had willingly, consciously,
taken up another responsibility. She was his wife. Life must be
transformed, must be so arranged that it should be practicable with him
and not another. Isabel took the baby up from the floor and pressed it
to her heart with a despair which could find no words. Thus it must be.
She had drawn her lot with her eyes open, knowing she must pay some hard
price for it, though not this price. The decision to be made was so
bitter and so terrible that it quenched down even her impetuous,
passionate nature. She could not be angry as she would have been had the
occasion been less trivial. She was beyond anger. There was in her whole
being the silence of despair.

The whole day passed over her in a hush like that which comes before a
storm. She framed the softest message she could, and sent Eelin back
with it, declaring that it was impossible she could come. And she
occupied her mind with schemes for her baby’s comfort, and for keeping
some trace of her own recollection before the child when they should be
parted, perhaps for ever and ever. For ever and ever--that was most
likely--with the great ocean between them, and life more bitter than
any ocean. Jean would be good to the child she knew, and Miss Catherine
would keep a watchful eye on her--and---- Only the mother would have no
part--no part in little Margaret’s life. She could not shed any more
tears, they were all dried up, scorched up out of her eyes; but she sat
all day by herself, and thought, and thought. Yes, this was how it must
be. Her own life was decided and settled by her own deed; and Isabel
would not say even to herself what a prospect she felt to be before her.
But to expose Margaret to the hatred of the man who ought to stand to
her in the place of a father, to make her little life subject to such
storms, to give her no happy home, full of love and tender freedom, but
a nook on suffrance in the house of ‘another family’--better let the
mother’s heart break once for all, and the child be happy, caressed,
above all criticism. Thus it must be.

When Stapylton returned that evening his mood was changed. Perhaps he
was ashamed, and felt that he had gone too far. Perhaps it was a natural
revulsion towards the wife he was still so fond of, that he was
determined to have her all to himself. He never mentioned little
Margaret or made any reference to her, but he was very tender to Isabel.
‘I am an ill-tempered fellow,’ he went so far as to say; ‘and if I make
myself disagreeable sometimes, my Isabel must forgive me.’ And Isabel,
for her part, was worn out; much emotion had worn her as great fatigue
might have done. She yielded her soul to the sweetness when it came. She
laid her head on his shoulder when he drew her to him, and cried, and
despaired, and yet was consoled.

‘I am going to Maryburgh fair,’ he said to her next morning. ‘Smeaton
has written to me to fetch away the cattle I bought. But I don’t want
them now; so I must sell them if I can. I shall be back by the last
steamer at dusk.’

‘Then that is farewell to all your thoughts of settling here?’

‘Farewell was said long ago,’ he said, ‘unless, indeed, there was
something very tempting. No, no, don’t look at me so eagerly; I don’t
mean to raise any hopes--America is the place for you and me. But, of
course, if there was any great temptation----’

‘Oh, Horace, if I might hope it would be so’--cried Isabel, with her
heart leaping to her mouth.

‘Well, well, wait and see what will happen,’ he said cheerfully; and in
that sudden gleam of comfort she hung about him, feeling all her fears
and sorrows melt away like mists in the sunshine. She kissed him with
her very heart on her lips before he left her. Isabel had been bred in
all the reticence of a grave Scottish maiden; her kisses were few, and
very rarely bestowed, but in this moment of revulsion, her heart smote
her for all the hard things she had been thinking. ‘Dear Horace!’ she
said, hanging about him, ‘I am always so hasty; but every day I will
know you better.’

‘And every day you grow sweeter,’ he said with a lover’s looks--and thus
they parted; he to the boat which should carry him to Maryburgh, she to
little Margaret’s room to dance her baby, and sing all manner of joyful
ditties to the child. ‘Oh, my bonnie darling, shall I keep you after
all?’ was the burden of Isabel’s gladness. She sang the words over and
over in her joy, as if they had been the _refrain_ of a song; and little
Margaret crowed and clapped her baby hands in reply, and the whole was
like the blessed awaking from a bad dream.

When Isabel had exhausted herself with enjoyment, she sat down at
length, having ordered the daintiest dinner she could contrive for his
comfort when he should return, and began to her wifely work, sewing on
buttons and putting her husband’s ‘things’ in order. It was pleasant to
be engaged about his ‘things’ at such a moment. She said to herself that
she had done him injustice, and her heart in the revulsion went back to
him with a warmth beyond the fervency even of her first love. The cloud
had blown past--surely for ever. She had misconceived him altogether.
While she had supposed him to be so harsh and unsympathetic, was it not
evident that all the time he had been overcoming his own prepossessions,
bringing himself to acquiescence in her desires? Her heart uttered
confessions of her sin against him, and praises of his goodness, while
she put the buttons on his shirts. And little Margaret played at her
feet, and the sunshine came in and lighted on the baby’s golden head,
and for almost the first time since her marriage Isabel’s heart was
light, and her happiness was unclouded as the day.

It was about two o’clock in the afternoon when the messenger whom
Stapylton had sent from Maryburgh reached the house. It was one of the
men upon the pier, whom Isabel knew. He brought her a little note,
written in pencil, from her husband, sending the key of a desk of his
which he always kept locked.

‘_I want some money_,’ Stapylton wrote. ‘_I see something here I can buy
with advantage, but I have not money enough. Open the right-hand drawer
above the pigeon-hole; be sure you don’t touch anything else--and send
me a pocket-book you will find in it. Remember not to touch anything
else, for there are things in it which belong to other people, and I
can’t have my papers interfered with. Lock it up again as soon as you
have taken out the pocket-book, and send me back the key._’

Isabel was a little startled by the note, anticipating evil at the sight
of it, as women instinctively do. And she was a little fluttered by the
haste of the messenger, who had to return by the boat in half an hour,
and was very pressing. She gave little Margaret over to Nelly Spence,
and put aside her work and hastened upstairs to her room where the desk
was. The very fact of his wishing to buy something, whatever it might
be, was an additional proof that he did not mean to go away, but was
thinking in earnest of remaining at home. She ran lightly upstairs, and
went to the old-fashioned brass-bound desk which had so often roused her
curiosity. She did not remember ever to have seen him open it. It had
belonged to his grandfather, he had once told her, and had secret
drawers in it, and all kinds of wonders. It was, however, commonplace
enough when it was opened. One side folded down to form the slope for
writing, and the other was filled with a little range of drawers exactly
alike. The right-hand one, however, was quite unmistakable; the
pigeon-hole below was clear of papers, and distinguished it from all the
rest. But it was stiff, and cost Isabel a great deal of trouble to open
it. She had to pull and pull till the little ivory knob came off, and
then her task was more difficult than ever. While she was trying her
best to get it open, with the thought in her mind that the messenger was
waiting all the time, and the boat ready to start, and her husband
fretting for the man’s arrival, her finger suddenly caught something
below, which came out with a little rush and click as of a spring. It
came upon her hand and hurt it, which was the first thing that attracted
her attention. Then it occurred to her that she might now get a better
hold upon her obstinate drawer; and putting her hand in behind, she at
length pulled it out triumphantly, and found the pocket-book, the object
of her search. No curiosity was in Isabel’s mind as to the other
contents of the desk. She shut the drawer hastily, and only then looked
at the smaller one below, which she had involuntarily opened. It would
not push back again in haste like the other. She stooped over it to
adjust the spring, thinking of nothing. Next moment she uttered a low
cry of horror. The pocket-book fell out of her hand on the floor. She
stood paralysed--immovable; her lips dropping apart like the lips of an
idiot, her face blanched as by a sudden whisper of Death.

‘I must go!’ said the man below stairs; ‘he’ll be that rampaging I’ll no
daur face him. Gang up the stair, my woman, and ask the mistress if I’m
to bide here a’ day.’

‘The boat’s ay late,’ said the servant-woman out of the kitchen. ‘Take
patience, man; she’ll no keep you waiting, unless there’s some reason
for it; and I’m busy wi’ my cakes, and canna stir, rampage as muckle as
ye please.’

‘Then, lassie, gang you,’ said Stapylton’s messenger. ‘She’s been half
an hour up the stair--half an hour, as I’m a sinner!--and her man
cursing and swearing a’ the time on Maryburgh pier. Rise up and ask,
like a bonnie lass! Tell her--answer or no answer--I maun away.’

‘Oh, aye, I’ll gang,’ said Nelly Spence; ‘but give me my wean. Now she’s
walking she’s mair trouble than when she was carried. She’s away, half
way down the passage before ye ken.’

‘Rin first and speak after,’ said the man. ‘Lord, woman, maun I gang up
the stair to the mistress mysel?’

Thus stimulated, Nelly Spence, with little Margaret in her arms, went
upstairs to the bedroom door. She knocked, but there was no answer. She
called softly, then louder, getting frightened; finally, she opened the
door and looked in. Isabel was standing in the same attitude, like a
creature suddenly congealed into ice or snow. Her side face, which was
visible to Nelly, was so ghastly white, and so like the face of an
idiot, that the girl was dumb with panic. She went quickly forward,
making a noise which at last seemed to catch Isabel’s ear. Her action,
then, was as extraordinary as her looks had been. She turned suddenly
round, and placed herself between the new-comer and the open desk, going
back upon the latter and putting her hands behind her, as if to conceal
it.

‘What do you want?’ poor Nelly supposed her to say; but it was a babble,
instead of words. She was like the old people who were paralysed.

‘Oh, Isabel,’ cried Nelly, in her terror forgetting all conventional
rules of respect, ‘Oh, Isabel, dinna look at me like that! I’ll rin for
the doctor. You’ve had a stroke!’

‘No!’ Isabel said, with an imperative gesture; and then, though her look
did not change, she struggled into utterance.

‘What do you want--what is it?’ she said.

‘It’s the man,’ cried Nelly; ‘he’s wanting his answer. But, oh, you’re
fitter to be in your bed. I’ll rin for the doctor, and tell him you’re
no able. Oh, what will we do?--a young thing like you!’

‘Tell him,’ said Isabel, regaining her voice by degrees--‘to tell--Mr.
Stapylton--there’s no answer. You hear me, Nelly: there is--no answer.
That is what he is to say.’

‘But, eh,’ said Nelly, with anxious kindliness, ‘he’ll be awfu’ angry.
If you would let me help you, and find it, whatever it was----’

‘Hold your peace!’ said Isabel, harshly. ‘Go and tell him. There is--no
answer. And leave me to myself. I have something here I want to do.’

‘Is she going to kill herself? Does she want him to kill her?’ Nelly
said, talking to herself as she went down the stair. When she was gone,
Isabel, with unsteady step, came across the room and locked the door.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the glass as she passed, and wondered
vaguely who it was. Then she went back to the open desk, and took out
the little secret drawer, and carried it, staggering as she went, to the
window. There was but one thing in it: a little broach set round with
pearls, with hair in the centre, attached to a long gold pin. Adhering
to the pin were still some ragged threads of the cambric in which
Isabel, with her own hands, had placed it one June morning, not yet two
years ago. This was the treasure shut carefully away in Horace
Stapylton’s secret drawer.




CHAPTER XLV


There are times when a great shock paralyses the whole being, and makes
it incapable of action; and there are other circumstances under which it
stimulates every power, sends the blood coursing to the heart, and fills
the mind with such promptitude of despair, as renders thought
unnecessary. At this awful moment both these effects were produced on
Isabel. She was paralysed. The sight of that terrible token changed her
into stone. The convulsive trembling of her figure steadied gradually as
she stood by the window looking at that terrible evidence of what had
happened to her; and, as it did so, a sudden, swift, indescribable sense
of what she had to do swept through her mind--not what she had to
suffer; that was swept out of sight for the moment; besides she was
dead, and there was no sense of suffering in her; all she was conscious
of was what she had to do.

She took the fatal little drawer first, and locked it up in a box of her
own, but walked over the pocket-book on the floor in utter
unconsciousness, having lost perception of everything that did not
concern the one frightful subject-matter of her thoughts. Then, with
hasty hands, she put on her bonnet and cloak, and hurried out to little
Margaret’s room, leaving Stapylton’s desk open. She took the baby out of
Nelly Spence’s arms, and began to put on its out-door dress. She had got
over her trembling, but her face was ashy white, paler than Nelly had
ever seen any living creature before. ‘Oh, where are ye going? Oh, let
me take the wean! Oh, mistress, ye’re no fit to be out of your bed!’
wailed Nelly in her consternation. Isabel made no reply. She was even so
far mistress of herself as to be able to smile a ghastly smile, and nod
her head at the baby as she put on its wraps. ‘I shall be back
before--dinner,’ she said as she went away. ‘Before dinner!’ Could
anything be more horrible than to think of the household table, the
common daily use and wont, in face of such a tragical conclusion? But
Isabel took no note of her own words. She took the child in her arms;
she repeated the same explanation to the maid in the kitchen; and,
passing out, took the way across the hill to Loch Diarmid. Little
Margaret, in her infant unconsciousness, babbled sweetly over her
mother’s shoulder, pulling Isabel’s veil and bonnet with her dimpled
hands, and smiling radiantly at the unaccustomed pleasure. Her little
voice ran on, with now and then a half-articulate word, in broken rills
of baby exclamation, wonder, delight, amusement--the little, loving,
broken monologue, which is so sweet to kindred ears; and Isabel, without
a look round her, without a pause, pressed on. It was a lonely, long,
dreary road, over the hill. She had never carried such a burden before,
and the baby was lively and happy, and not to be kept quiet. The only
conscious thought in the mother’s mind was, Oh, if she would but go to
sleep, and relieve the tired arms in which she danced and frolicked.
Once or twice Isabel sat down for a moment on the roadside, but dared
not prolong her rest, she had so much--so much to do. The early winter
twilight was fading when she went in breathless to the Glebe Cottage,
and sank, without a word, into the great old high-backed chair in the
kitchen. Jean, with joy and wonder, and then with wonder and
consternation, rushed forward to take the child, and overwhelmed her
with welcome and astonishment. ‘Eh, my wee darling--eh, Isabel, my
bonnie woman! Where have ye come from so sudden? There’s nae boat at
this hour!’ Jean said in her amaze. And then the delight of the child’s
return fortunately occupied her, and gave Isabel a moment’s
breathing-time. Breathless, fainting, weary to death, she lay back in
the great chair. Her arms ached, her head ached, her heart was panting
with the effort for breath. She seemed to require rest only--nothing but
rest. The warmth of the fire, the quiet, the familiar objects round her,
lulled her as if they had been singing a cradle-song. A confused
longing came over her to end here and stay, and go no farther. Alas, how
was she ever, ever to retrace that weary, darkling path over the hills!

‘You’ve never walkit all the way?’ cried Jean at last. ‘It’s enough to
have killed you, Isabel, my woman! You’re awfu’ white, and ye dinna say
a word. Is there anything ails ye? and what has brought ye walking with
the wean ower the hills? Eh, I’m feared something’s happened! Bide a
moment, my bonnie woman, till I get you a glass of sherry wine!’

The wine restored Isabel a little to herself. It brought back the energy
which had begun to fail her. ‘I have brought you Margaret,’ she said.
‘It is nothing. I could have sent Nelly, of course, but it
was--pleasanter--I mean I liked better--to bring her myself. She is fond
of you--you’ll be very, very good to her--whatever happens!’

‘Oh, Isabel! what should happen?’ cried Jean.

‘One never knows,’ said Isabel, drearily. ‘That is not what I meant to
say; I mean, you’ll take great care of my baby; she is all I have.
Except for her, what do I care what happens? Nelly will come, you know,
with her things. I will send her as soon as I get--home.’

‘But, my bonnie woman, there’s no boat to-night,’ cried Jean. ‘Walk! na,
I would never hear of that. Ye canna walk a’ the way to Kilcranion ower
the hills.’

‘I must go at once,’ said Isabel. And then, again, the thought, Must she
go? came over her. Could not she stay here in her own house, where she
had taken refuge? Were there not her old friends, who would arrange
everything for her? A sudden sickening of heart came over her; and yet
her whole being was so confused, that she was not sure whether it was
the mere walk, or what would come after that walk, which overwhelmed her
most.

‘Oh, if you would hide me!--Oh, if ye would take me away!’ she cried, in
the misery of her soul.

‘Hide ye! take ye away! Oh, Isabel, has it come to this? Aye, I’ll hide
ye--aye, I’ll defend ye!’ cried Jean, roused up to sudden wrath. ‘Trust
to me, my bonnie woman. Nae man, were he the king, shall come rampaging
here!’

These very words, which expressed the deepest evil Jean could dream of,
and which yet were so trifling, so shallow, compared to the facts, awoke
Isabel fully to a sense of her position. She rose up, composing herself
as best she could.

‘Hush!’ she said. ‘I must go back. I was speaking--like a fool. I have a
great deal to do. The only thing is, that you’ll take care of little
Margaret; you’ll never let her out of your sight. My bonnie darling! let
me kiss her, and I’ll go.’

‘No this night--oh, no this night!’ cried Jean. ‘Ye’ll drop down on the
hill, ye’ll be that wearied; it’s enough to be your death.’

‘That would be the best of all!’ said Isabel under her breath. When she
was in movement she was not conscious how weary she was; but as she
stood thus, with the child holding out its arms to her, with the old
home wooing her, with a possibility, it might be, of escape and flight
thus presenting itself before her, her limbs ached, her heart failed.
But no, no; that which had to be done could be done only by herself.

‘I must be going now,’ she said, faintly. ‘Don’t ask me any questions.
Let me kiss her once again. Oh, you’ve been a kind woman to Margaret and
me! Promise me that you’ll never--never forsake my little bairn!’

‘Isabel, dinna break my heart. How could I forsake her, the darling,
that was born into my very arms?’

‘And you’ll never let her out of your sight?’ said Isabel. She was gone
again before Jean could say another word. When she rushed, with the
child in her arms, to the door, the young mother was already almost out
of call, speeding up the hill-side like a shadow. The sun had set even
beyond the western hills, and had been out of sight here at the Glebe
for three-quarters of an hour. ‘Though it’s longer light on the other
side of the hill, it’ll be dark night before she gets home,’ said Jean
to herself. ‘Oh, did I no ay say it was to her destruction she was
taking that English lad?’ She stood and watched as long as the
retreating figure was visible, with thoughts of rushing after her, of
appealing to Miss Catherine or the Dominie, or someone who could aid.
‘But wha can interfere between man and wife?’ Jean said to herself, with
homely wisdom, shaking her head as she went back to her fireside with
the child who had been thus suddenly dropped into her arms. ‘My wee pet!
at least she may be easy in her mind about you,’ she said, with tears,
kissing the little creature, who could give no explanation; and thus
accepted the mystery on which, for this night at least, it appeared no
light could be thrown.

Isabel had reached the middle of her homeward course before she awoke to
any sort of consciousness of what was before her. Was it on such another
night as this--darker still, more cloudy and stormy--that one man had
struck another down, and wrenched from his breast that little token of
innocent affection and tragic misery? O God! could it be? Then she saw
herself at the opera, with that fatal eye upon her; she recalled the
sense of something malign regarding her, of which she had been conscious
in the Manse garden the night before the minister’s death. These
recollections and impressions came one by one, each thrusting her
through with a sharper and a sharper dart. She tried to escape from
them--to think what she ought to do. Something there was that must be
done. She was going back to him--her husband, her husband’s slayer--to
him who had dared to take her into his arms, knowing the awful ghost
that stood between them. Isabel hid her face, as if some accusing eye
had looked at her, and cried aloud, in the agony of her shame. How was
she polluted!--she who was Margaret’s mother and the minister’s wife! He
had come to her with that blood on his hand, knowing his own guilt, and
plucked her like a flower--taken her in spite of herself--made her his,
to bear his name, and bound her to him for ever and ever. She writhed
upon that sword as she sat and rocked herself on the dark wayside. It
seemed to her as if some cruel, avenging angel--as if God Himself--had
put the bitter weapon through her heart, and held it there, despite her
struggles, keeping her to a sense of the deepness of her misery,
preventing her from thinking rather what she must do. What was she to
do? Oh, if she could only think of that question, instead of writhing
and aching, and stabbing herself through and through with this!

But the night grew darker, and the wind moaned louder, and Isabel
started with a thrill of natural terror. She stood on the highest point
of the road, feeling that there was still a choice before her, for one
wild moment. She might turn, and fly back to the Glebe even now. She
might shut fast the doors, and send for her friends, and barricade
herself from the approach of the murderer; her husband’s murderer--that
was what he was! She stood with her breath coming in sobs against the
wind, all alone in Heaven and earth, to make her decision. Oh! she could
so easily gather a body-guard to defend her!--friends that would hold
her fast, and her baby, and keep her from all fear. What need had she to
go back, to see his dreadful murderer’s face--to be touched by the hands
which---- Isabel turned and made a rush downwards on the side of Loch
Diarmid to her safe and silent home. Then she paused, and painfully
retraced her steps. Her heart was gashed and cut in two by that awful
sword, which God would not withdraw for a moment. She was the wife at
once of the slayer and the slain. God help her! If she sent for her
friends to avenge her husband, would not that be to kill her husband?
Kill her husband! She walked up and down like a wild creature on the
top of the hill. The clouds seemed to be drooping over her, so near they
rolled in their great, tumultuous waves; big drops of rain fell from
their skirts, like something cast at her out of the heavens. The storm
was rising from Loch Diarmid as if to hunt her before it down to the
gloomy shores of Loch Goil. Over there, in the west, there was a pale
glimmer that seemed to direct her--where? To him who, no doubt, was now
waiting for her--the man whose name she bore--whose wife she was; her
first love--her worst enemy. Was she to devote herself to him, loathing
him as she did? Was she to denounce him, loving him as she did? What,
oh! what--was there no counsel in Heaven or earth?--was she to do?

When she arrived at the house Isabel was drenched with the torrent of
rain which had swept her before it down the dark slope of the hill. The
blast had been so violent, and the feverish strength of excitement was
so great in her, that she had made up for all the time she had lost on
the summit by the swiftness of the descent. And when she reached home
she found that her husband had not yet returned. ‘The boat’s no in yet,’
said the maid from the kitchen; ‘and, oh! mem, but you’re wet; you’ll
have time to change your wet things afore the maister can be back.’

‘And where’s the bairn?’ said Nelly, open-mouthed.

‘You must pack up all her things,’ said Isabel, collecting all her
powers, ‘and take them on to the Glebe. I left her at the Glebe
with--Mrs Diarmid. If it is too late to-night go to-morrow morning. I
don’t think I shall have her here again.’

The maids were in a panic, alarmed for her sanity. They looked at her
with suspicious looks. ‘Mrs. Stapylton,’ said Nelly, with an effort for
breath, ‘you’re sure you ken what you’re saying. Oh! dinna be angry, if
you’re _yoursel_. You’re sure you’ve done the wean no harm?’

‘Me! harm my darling!’ said Isabel, incredulous that the fear could be
real; and then a blaze of momentary indignation came to her aid. ‘Go to
your work both of you,’ she said; ‘and don’t take it upon you to
criticise what I do. Stand aside, Nelly, I am going upstairs.’

They let her pass them with momentary bewilderment, not knowing what to
do. ‘But I’ll tell him as soon as he comes in,’ said the elder woman; ‘a
man ought to know.’

‘You’ll do nothing of the kind,’ said Nelly, who had a spirit. ‘She’s
mair like a living creature now, and no so like a ghost. Bide, and let
him find out for himself.’

‘But, woman, the bairn!’

‘Never you mind the bairn. She’s safe in the Glebe, I dinna doubt, with
Jean. They’ve had some quarrel about her,’ said Nelly, with precocious
insight, ‘and this is the upshot. Let us haud our tongues, and see what
will come o’ ‘t. Eh, woman! a’body said ill would come o’ ‘t; and ye see
it was true.’

‘As she has made her bed so must she lie,’ said the other,
sententiously; and she went back to her kitchen to see after the dinner,
which was being prepared all the same, whatever tragedies might come to
pass. Nelly stole upstairs after Isabel; but dared not follow her to her
room, much as she longed to do so; and lights began to be visible in the
windows, and everything was made ready for the husband’s coming home.

Isabel had come to herself; her thoughts had lulled as the wind lulled,
for no reason she knew of--perhaps out of weariness. When she went into
her room she perceived the desk standing open, the pocket-book lying on
the floor; and had so much possession of herself as to put them away,
restoring the book to its place and closing the desk. She could do this
with a certain calm, feeling as if her discovery had been made years
ago, and since then she had had time to face the idea and accustom
herself to it. She took off her wet gown, and dressed herself as usual.
All this she did mechanically, in a sudden hush, scarcely thinking,
scarcely feeling anything. When she heard his step coming to the door
there rose within her a tempest just as sudden. Should she go down to
meet him, or let him come here? Should she wait till he assailed her, or
should she announce her awful discovery at once? None of these questions
could Isabel answer for herself. She had to act mechanically, not
knowing in one moment what she would do the next. He came in with an
angry inquiry about ‘your mistress,’ which she could hear where she was.
His voice was louder than usual; his very step betrayed irritation. But
what was his irritation now to her? It even struck her with a curious
sense of wonder that he could take the trouble to be moved by trifling
causes to trifling passion--he who, as he and she knew---- Mechanically
still, and quite suddenly, as if some spring had been touched in her of
which she was unconscious, she went down, and went into the room. He had
placed himself with his back to the fire, full of wrath, which was
evidently ready to burst forth the moment she entered. The table was
spread for dinner. An air of homely comfort was about the place; the
light was dim, to be sure--but it was as much as they were used to; and
the candles brightened the white-covered table with its gleams of
reflection, and the ruddy, quivering firelight filled the room. All
these calm details of ordinary life encircled the two at this dreadful
moment with that hypocrisy of nature which cloaks over the fiercest
passion; and in the kitchen the dinner was preparing, not without much
serious anxiety on the part of the maid lest the fish should be spoiled;
for Stapylton was ‘very particular’ about his dinner, and prompt to
wrath when anything impaired its perfection.

‘Well,’ he said, when Isabel came into the room, ‘I hope you have
something to say for yourself. What did you mean by sending me such a
message to-day? I wonder if you are mad, or if it is only pride and
obstinacy. No answer? How dared you, when I had sent you my directions,
send back such a message to me?’

‘Because I was stunned,’ she said, ‘and did not know what I was saying.
Let us not speak of it till you have eaten. Wait till then. I have
much--much--to say.’

‘Much to say!--a great deal too much I don’t doubt,’ he said; ‘if you
think this sort of thing will do for me, you are mistaken, Isabel. You
may as well know at once. I am not the man to be trifled with. My wife
must obey me--do you understand? I can’t have two wills in my house. My
wife must obey me!’ he went on, striking his hand against the table. ‘I
have borne as much of your self-will as I mean to bear. My wife must
have no will but mine.’

Isabel looked at him as from some height of knowledge, feeling no
movement of anger, no irritation at his words. Oh! to think he should be
occupied about matters so trifling at a moment so terrible! To get his
wife to obey him! Could he care for that, when this life was over,
blasted in a moment, and nothing remained for either of them but a blank
existence of despair? Her heart bled for him, making himself angry thus
at the merest trifles, not knowing what was to come.

‘The dinner is coming,’ she said, wondering at herself that she could
form the words, ‘and the woman will be in the room. Would you wait till
it is over? And you must want food and support,’ she added, with an
ineffable pity. It was not the pity of love. It was the compassion with
which she might have fortified a criminal with food and wine, before
telling him the awful news of his approaching execution--a human
sentiment of pity for a weak creature in unconscious peril, about to be
strained to the utmost, and unaware of it. He gave her an angry look, to
see what she meant, but could not divine it, so wrapt was she in the
unconscious elevation and tragic seriousness of the crisis. He did not
know what a crisis it was. And he could not understand the strange
superiority of her calm.

‘And then the inconsistency of it,’ he said, moodily placing himself at
the head of the table. ‘You pretend to want me to stay, and when I begin
to entertain the idea, and was actually in treaty for some land, you
step in, in your perversity, and break it off by disobeying my orders.
What did you mean by it? What reason could you have? By Jove! if I had
gone off at once and never come near you again, it would have served you
right.’

Oh! if he had done so, Isabel murmured within herself; but the servant
was in the room, the dinner being placed on the table, and nothing more
was practicable. She sat there happily concealed by the cover of the
dish placed before her, and made motions as though she were eating, and
listened to all his grumbling over the indifferent meal. The fish was
spoiled; the meat was badly roasted; the vegetables were uneatable. ‘If
you would give a little more attention to this sort of thing, and waste
less time over that precious baby, it would be more to the purpose,’ he
said, ‘that woman is an idiot; so are all these Scotch women; and, by
Jove! I was the greatest idiot of all to come and settle myself down
here.’ Isabel made no answer. That he should be on such a brink, and yet
be disturbed by the arrangement of the grasses on the edge of the
precipice! She had no inclination to reply to him, or to take offence.
She gazed at him across the table wistfully, with a compassion that was
almost tender, and yet felt she could not go to him, could not touch
him, or bear his touch, not for all the world.

Then there came the moment when the table was cleared and the door
closed, and they sat looking at each other with the two candles lighting
the little white space between them. There was perfect quiet in the
house. The maids were in the kitchen, frightened, not knowing what might
happen, with the door shut between them and their master and mistress.
Outside, the little world was hushed; not a sound, except an occasional
blast of rain on the windows, or melancholy splash of the Loch on the
beach, breaking the utter silence; still as the grave, which seemed to
rise up between the two as they looked at each other in the pause before
the storm.

‘Well?’ said Stapylton.

Isabel had made no preparation of what she was to say. She did not know
what words would come to her lips. She felt herself passive, not so much
an actor as the spectator of this scene. The only thing she had done was
to bring down with her, wrapped in her handkerchief, the little secret
drawer of his desk containing the awful token she had found. When he
looked across at her, demanding with contemptuous defiance her apology
or explanation, she gazed back at him for a moment without a word to
say. Words would not come to her aid. She took up her enclosure and
unfolded it with trembling hands. She began to tremble over all her
frame, even to her lips, which refused to move articulately. He sat
looking on unsuspicious, surprised, and scornful, while she fumbled with
the handkerchief. Then she rose up and held it out to him. Her face was
as pale as death; her eyes dilated; her hands, in both of which she held
it, shaking wildly. ‘Look what I found!’ she cried, with her eyes fixed
upon him. They were the only things steady about her. Her voice was
inarticulate; her arms powerless. All her life had retreated into her
eyes.

He sprang up to his feet at the same moment, and swore a great oath,
bending over the table to see what it was. Then he fell back in his
chair again, as pale as she was, trembling as she did. He was taken by
surprise. ‘Good God, Isabel!’ he said, ‘Good God, Isabel!’ stumbling at
the words almost as she did, ‘what do you mean?’

‘Look, and see!’ cried Isabel, with her lips suddenly opened, ‘look and
see! oh, man! was there no other woman in the world that you should make
me vile and make me miserable? Was there no other spot in the world,
that you should come to shed blood here? You had eaten his bread and
drunk his cup. You had taken my heart’s love and the flower of my youth.
Could you not have been content? We were thinking you no harm, doing you
no harm--and ye came and killed my man, my blessed man! And even that
was enough. What harm was I doing you, a lone creature with my bairn,
that you should come again and pollute me, and put his blood on me? Oh,
look and see! Ye took me to your arms with that horror in your mind. How
dared you do it, Horace Stapylton? How dared you put yourself with that
blood upon you, between the dead and me?’

He had recoiled and shrunk away from her, pushing back his chair. He had
been so taken by surprise that his very wits failed him. ‘For God’s
sake, don’t scream at me,’ he cried, with a thrill of terror. ‘Do you
know they are listening? For God’s sake, woman, speak low, whatever you
have to say.’

Then she gave a sudden low cry, and sank back into her seat. She had not
said it to herself. She had never permitted herself to think it; and yet
at the bottom of her heart there had been a hope that he would deny,
that somehow he might be able to disprove even what that silent witness
said. But he had not attempted to deny it--it was all true, true! And
she lived and he lived, with _that_ between them. She could not stand,
her limbs failed her; but she kept her hand upon that terrible evidence
of his guilt, and kept looking at him with her dilated eyes.

‘Well,’ he said, getting up after a terrible pause, ‘so this is your
story--this is what you have made up. You think you can ruin me with
it--perhaps you think you can kill me. But it is all a mistake. Throw it
into the fire--that is the wisest thing that can be done both for you
and me.’

‘Not yet,’ said Isabel, under her breath.

‘Not yet! Do it of your own will, that will be wisest. Don’t drive me to
compel you to do it,’ he said, pacing up and down; and then he came to a
sudden pause before her. ‘One word, Isabel, before things go too far.
You know what accusation you are bringing against me? You can’t prove
it. _That_ is no proof. Do you understand what I say? And more, it is
not true.’

‘Oh!’ she said, clasping her hands, ‘say it is not true! Say you found
it--or bought it--or--Horace, say it was not you!’

He paused a moment, gazing at her with an evident struggle going on in
his mind whether to seek his own safety or to gratify his feelings. ‘I
neither bought it nor found it,’ he said at last, under his breath, with
a glance of fury in his eyes; and then he added with a sudden shudder,
‘but what killed him was the fall from his horse.’

‘And you--oh, tell me a lie rather--tell me a lie! You!’ cried Isabel,
‘struck an old man, a defenceless man, when he was down----?’

‘Who told you that?’ he cried, sharply. And then with another flash of
fury, ‘How much more evil had he done to me?’ he exclaimed, throwing
himself into his chair again with great drops of moisture standing like
beads upon his forehead. And there was a pause like a lull in a storm.

Then the gust rose again, menacing and sudden. ‘You think I am making a
confession,’ he said, ‘but I am doing nothing of the sort. You cannot
harm me. I am safe, at least from the wife of my bosom. You can’t bear
witness against your husband, though you had ten thousand proofs. Thank
the law for that. If all this passion were not a pretence to start with!
Was there ever a woman that quarrelled with her lover for anything he
could do for her sake?’

‘For _my_ sake!’ said Isabel, with a low cry of horror.

‘Yes, for what else? for your beauty and your love? Did I know what a
cold-blooded phantom you were? I swore to have you when I saw you by
his side! Curse him! And I have had you. Do what you will, you can’t
alter that--you are my wife now, and not his.’

‘Oh, don’t make me loathe myself more than I do,’ she cried, wildly.
‘Don’t make me more hateful than I am to myself.’

‘But it is true,’ he said, once more approaching her; ‘you are mine, and
you are harmless against me. I have had my desire, and I have disarmed
my enemy. And look here, Isabel, you may as well hear reason,’ he added,
coming up to her and grasping her shoulder, ‘you need not think of
putting it into other hands. If I did _that_ for your sake, what do you
think I should be capable of for my own?’

She looked up and their eyes met, and they gazed at each other for one
awful moment--he like a tiger ready to spring--she pale and resolute as
an image of death.

‘Of killing me,’ she said, never turning her eyes from him, ‘as you
would kill a fly.’

‘Yes,’ he said; ‘you are right--as I would kill a fly; if you put me in
danger, or threaten my life.’

The voices of both had sunk into absolute calm. The anxious servants in
the kitchen concluded that the storm was over. ‘They’re talking as quiet
as you and me,’ Nelly Spence said, with a sigh of relief, as she came
back from an anxious vigil at the door. While the husband stood by his
wife’s chair, with his hand on her shoulder, speaking to her in a voice
as quiet and subdued as if the words had been the tenderest words of
love.

‘It is well you should know what you have to expect,’ he said. ‘Submit,
and I will forgive all this, and take you back to my heart. Shudder if
you please, but my arms are the only ones open to you now; I will take
you back, notwithstanding that you mean to betray me; but if you keep
your own way, Isabel, understand that I will crush you like a fly.’

She kept looking at him, undaunted, not moving a hair-breadth back, nor
changing her position. Her shrinking youth, her womanly tremor, all
extinguished in an emergency more terrible than any death.

‘Would I care?’ she said softly, as if to herself; ‘now that life itself
is dead and gone? You cannot frighten me now.’

‘Like a fly!’ he repeated, as if he liked the image, closing his hand as
if upon it; ‘you, and that child you make your idol. Ah, I touch you
now!’

‘She is safe out of your reach,’ said Isabel, though not without a
tremble. And he, too, started slightly. The duel was to the death, and
his opponent was unencumbered, free to beard him to the last extremity.

‘What do you want?’ he asked abruptly, seating himself in front of her.
‘In all this I suppose you mean something. What do you want of me now?’

Then it rushed upon Isabel in a moment what she ought to say.

‘You are in danger,’ she said; ‘you were seen that night. At any moment
they might remember it was you. And I know. And never more--never, never
more can you and me be as we have been. Never more! Sooner, I would
die!’

The shudder in her voice thrilled him with wild irritation; but he gave
no sign of it, waiting for what she had to say.

‘What I want of you is, that you should leave me,’ she went on. ‘Leave
me--that is all! Go where you were going when we met. Hear me out! I
will give you everything I can give you; all I have you shall have; but
save yourself, Horace, and go.’

‘Is it for me you are thinking?’ he said; and suddenly his heart melted,
and he tried to take her hand.

‘Let me be! oh, let me be!’ cried Isabel, shrinking from him. ‘It is for
you, too. How could we live and face each other, now I know? I would
speak; it would burn out my heart, till, sleeping or waking, I would
speak. And--they--would remember it was you. But never will I breathe
your name when you are gone. Never will I say a word--never one word of
blame. And I will--forgive you!’ she said, with a sudden cry.

She was capable of no more.

The servants, hearing no sound that alarmed them, began to move about in
the house going to bed. The sound of the door being locked, and the
shutters closed, roused the two from their deadly argument. After a
while, one of the women came in to close the windows for the night, and
see if anything more was wanted. This sudden breaking in of the ordinary
and commonplace intensified beyond all power of description the tragic
misery of the scene. It might have lasted through the whole night but
for that. It might have led to any horrible conclusion. Isabel rose and
went up to him, while the maid barred and bolted, and made all fast. ‘I
have said all I have to say,’ she whispered in his ear with white,
quivering lips. ‘Now, it is in your hands.’

It never occurred to him that these were her last words. When he looked
up from his moody reverie and found her gone, it did not even strike him
as strange. He followed her upstairs slowly after an interval of
thought. The room was empty, a light burning, his pocket-book lying on
the table, and all traces of his wife gone. The house was all silent,
dark, and motionless. Then for the first time horror and fear came over
him. He did not dare make a commotion in that stillness, or call for her
to come back to him. Whatever might happen, the woman whom he had loved
after his fashion had disappeared for ever out of Stapylton’s life.




CHAPTER XLVI


The night was a winter’s night--long and dark. Stapylton sat down in his
solitary room, and tried to think. He would let her alone, was his first
thought; he would leave her at peace. No doubt she had gone away to the
baby who was her idol. She must have told him a lie when she said it was
gone. But he would leave her to herself: he had plenty to think of,
Heaven knew. ‘It was not I that killed him,’ he said to himself, as he
had said a thousand times before. Oh, the intolerable night! so silent,
so full of horrible suggestions; and that aching void into which all in
a moment any horror might spring. He took up his candle, in his misery,
and went wandering all over the house, trying every door. He went to the
door of the room in which the servants had locked themselves, and heard
them rustling in their beds, and whispering to each other in their
panic; and he went to another door from which came no sound--‘Isabel,
Isabel, come back to me!’ he said, and a sigh seemed to breathe through
the house, but no answer came. He wanted her not so much to return to
him and resume the common life, as to come and protect him at that awful
moment, to keep spirits and appearances away from him. He had hours of
darkness to get through, and how was he to live through them by himself?
It was this panic that made him try the doors; but it sent a deeper
panic into the hearts of the three women who listened to his movements
in the silence. Isabel, alone in the room where her child had been,
believed in her heart that he had come to kill her, as he said, and
wound herself up in her misery to bear whatever she might be compelled
to bear; and yet trembled and wept, in a stillness as of death.

For seven or eight awful hours of darkness this torture continued. No
one closed an eye in the agitated house; and yet, save when Stapylton
went or came, a horrible silence reigned in it, unbroken by any
complaint or appeal for help. It was not daylight at last which aroused
her from that century-long vigil--daylight did not come till about eight
o’clock, when the morning was far advanced. It was the first sound of
early life outside, which came like a voice from Heaven to Isabel. When
she heard it she rose up softly from the cramped position she had
maintained all night, thrust up into the corner, and very quietly, with
trembling hands and heart, utterly unnerved by the horrors of the night,
prepared to make her escape. She could bear it no longer. She had faced
the man who had threatened to kill her, with dauntless resolution, on
the previous night, feeling almost that such a conclusion would be as
desirable as any other. But the night had taken away all her courage and
force. She trembled like a leaf and could not command herself. Before
her, like a vision of Heaven, appeared that little room at the Glebe,
where her child no doubt was sleeping. If she could but reach that
palace of peace! Stealthily, that no sound might betray her, she bathed
her hot forehead, and put up her hair, and drew her cloak round her. It
was more difficult to open the door without noise, and steal down the
stairs, which creaked under her, soft as her steps were. When she
stepped out at last into the darkness, which was no longer night but
morning, and felt the chill air on her face, and heard behind her sounds
of the early world beginning to stir, a certain excitement of hope rose
in Isabel’s mind. She thought she had escaped.

But her husband had heard her movements, soft as they were. He was fully
dressed as he had been on the previous evening, and, like her, feverish
with passion and want of sleep. He took out a pistol from the box in
which it reposed beside his desk. The pistol was old-fashioned as well
as the desk, and he had been in the habit of calling the weapons
curiosities. He charged it hurriedly in the dark, not knowing what he
did, and put it in the breast-pocket of his coat, and rushed out after
his wife into the rain and wind.

She was half way up the lower slope towards the Loch Diarmid road, when
she heard his step behind her, and felt, with a sudden leap of all her
pulses, that not yet--not yet, had she escaped her fate. It was no
surprise to her when he came up and laid his hand on her shoulder: the
first far-off sound of his step had made it evident to her that there
was still a struggle to come.

‘You are flying from me,’ he said to her, breathless. ‘Do you think I
will let you escape from me like this without another word?’

‘I was not thinking of escape,’ said Isabel, faltering. ‘I could not
bear it longer. I could not bear it. That was all.’

‘And yet you think I am to bear it,’ he said, making a clutch at her
arm. ‘False accusations and abuse and scorn, and desertion, and all
your hard words and contempt of me. You think I am to bear it all!’

‘Alas!’ she said, ‘when did I ever show contempt of you? But, oh! let me
go. What can we do but weary each other with vain words? If we had
quarrelled we might talk and talk and mend it. But that which is between
us is beyond help. Let me go.’

‘No, by God!’ he cried, holding her fast, ‘after the price I have paid
for you. No! What is to hinder me from killing you as you say I
did--_him_? I will not be left alone to think. You shall stay with me
and share with me, or by God, I will make an end of you!’

Isabel felt that her last hour was come. It was so dark that she could
with difficulty see his face. There was silence and blackness round
them--not a human creature from whom to ask help--and if there had been
a thousand, she would have asked help from none.

‘It must be as you will,’ she said, with the sudden calm of despair--‘as
you will!’ and waited, wondering, would it be a knife or a bullet, or
the more horrible agony of his hands and blows--his hands, which had
embraced her so often--at her throat? She closed her eyes instinctively,
as if the darkness was not enough, and stood waiting, waiting for the
touch of the death, which was so near.

‘And you have not a word to say for yourself,’ he said, his breath
burning her cheek. ‘Not a word? Have you nothing to offer me for your
life?’

The bitterness of death was upon her; his grasp upon her shoulder was
like iron. ‘Let it be quick!’ she said, with a shudder. ‘Maybe it’s best
so--maybe it’s best.’

‘And that is all?’

‘Oh! do it and be done,’ she cried, falling at his feet, ‘or leave me
living for your own sake--for your sake. Is my life worth struggling for
_now_? but for yourself let me be----’

‘Is that all?’ he said again. And then drew something from his breast,
and a cold mouth of iron touched Isabel’s cheek. An involuntary cry
burst from her by instinct. Now it had come. Suddenly she heard a
report, and started aside from the sudden flash in the darkness, and
fell back, but not wounded. She had been so sure of death that her
safety threw her into a convulsive fit of horror and fear; there was an
awful moment in which she could not tell what had happened, if it was
her who was killed or anyone. Then there was a movement, a swing of his
arm--his dark shadow was still standing beside her--and the pistol was
thrown high ever her head, and went dashing down over the rocks, into
the black invisible Loch, which raged and beat upon the unseen shore.

‘Isabel,’ he said, ‘give me a kiss before we part.’

Oh, awful darkness that enclosed them round and round! Oh, awful
nearness and separation! Her heart melted and sunk within her at that
last prayer.

‘Oh, Horace, let me die!’

She would have fallen, but for his arms round her; but even at that
supreme moment he did not know why she would rather have died than have
been thus enveloped for the last time in his embrace. The melting of her
heart, the old love rising up within her like a giant, the struggle of
faithful nature which could die, but could not forsake and abandon,
wrung Isabel’s whole being, body and soul. But not his; he kissed her,
and he let her go. He stood for a moment in the darkness before her, and
then he turned and went away.

It was all over. She called after him faintly, ‘Horace!’ in a voice
swallowed by the wind, and sank down on the cold ground, prostrate,
covering her face with her hands. She could hear his steps going down
the hill and count them, each echoing on her heart. It was all over.
Death, and danger, and love, and strife, and happiness, had all departed
from her.

It was nearly noon before Isabel, stumbling at every step, reached the
Glebe Cottage, the aim she had been vaguely struggling to--was it for
hours or days? She went in with her haggard face, so changed and drawn
with suffering, that Jean gave a cry of terror, and did not know her.
She had not even a smile for her child, nor any interest in her. ‘Let me
rest! Let me rest!’ was all she could say. Jean put the baby down on the
carpet in the parlour, and gave all her care to the young mother thus
come back to her for pity and consolation. ‘Ye’ve been caught in the
storm, my lamb!’ she said, tenderly. But Isabel gave no explanation. She
suffered herself to be undressed and laid in her own room--the little
chamber she had occupied for the greater part of her life. Nothing but a
murmur of thanks, or a sudden shudder, or a sigh, came from her as her
stepmother tended and caressed her. When Jean questioned her, she shook
her head and made no answer. The good woman was driven to her wits’ end.
To her limited perceptions it was apparent that there had been a quarrel
between the husband and wife about little Margaret; that Isabel, after
leaving her child in safety the previous night, had come back again to
see her, and had been caught in the storm, and that at ‘any moment’
Stapylton himself might appear to claim the runaway. ‘He never could
think she would take it to heart like this,’ Jean said to herself. But
the strangest thing was, that Isabel took no notice of the baby after
suffering so much for her. When Jean could bear the mystery and
responsibility no longer, she sent a mysterious message to Miss
Catherine: ‘My mother says, if you ever cared for our Isabel, you’re to
come now, and lose no time,’ said little Mary, who was the messenger and
in whose hands the mystery lost none of its power. ‘Lord bless me, is
your mother mad?’ was Miss Catherine’s forcibly reply. But
notwithstanding, she made haste to get her great waterproof cloak and
her umbrella, and set out as soon as there was a pause in the rain to
ascertain what grounds there might be for so strange an appeal.

‘There is nae love lost between him and me,’ Jean explained, when Miss
Catherine had been introduced into Isabel’s room, and had looked
horror-stricken at the change in her face, without, so far as they could
see, being recognised by the sufferer. ‘But I couldna bear to expose the
family; what am I to say to the doctor, if I send for him? When a woman
is as ill as that, she should be in her ain house.’

‘Say!’ said Miss Catherine. ‘It may be life or death--let him see her
first, and tell us what is to be done, and then we will think what to
say. Let Jamie go at once--if I am not mistaken there is more here than
meets the eye.’

‘I kent they never would ‘gree about that wean,’ said Jean, with her
apron to her eyes. ‘Eh, the darling, that I should speak of her so; I ay
said there would be dispeace about wee Margaret. It would have been
better to have left her with me.’

‘If there had not been dispeace about that, it would have been something
else,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘nothing good could have come out of
it--nothing good was possible--it was what we all said.’

‘She was well warned,’ said Jean, ‘if onything could be a comfort to
remember at sic a time; but, poor thing, it must never be cast up to her
now.’

‘And where is her man?’ said Miss Catherine.

This question was repeated over and over again in many a tone of wonder
ere many hours had passed. The fact that he did not come to inquire
after her all that evening, that no search whatever was made, but the
runaway wife suffered to sink into her old home without protestation or
appeal, bewildered everybody about. The doctor, and Jean Campbell, and
Jenny Spence, and by degrees all the village, and even the parish, grew
aghast with wonder. A quarrel about the child was a comprehensible
thing, and was received by everybody with many shakings of the head, and
declarations of their own foresight. ‘I ay kent how it would be,’ said
one after another, and for the first moment it would be vain to say that
it was anything less than a sensation of triumph that burst upon the
Loch. But when the husband did not appear to make friends, and when it
began to be rumoured about the parish that ‘bonnie Isabel’ was lying ill
in a fever, altogether alone and deserted by the man for whom she had
separated herself from her home and her friends, pity began to take the
place of this self-gratulation. This was carrying matters too far. The
next day in the afternoon Nelly Spence came over the hill carrying her
own bundle and little Margaret’s, and with a scared and agitated face.
Her story ran like wildfire round the Loch. She told the tale of the
first night of terror till the gossips’ hair stood on end. She told of
the exit of both parties in the early morning, of Stapylton’s
re-entrance, of his commands to them to keep quiet and wait for their
mistress’s return--commands which woke in their minds the frantic
thought that he had thrown her into the Loch in the darkness, and that
she never would come back. They had been too much frightened, however,
by Stapylton’s presence and looks to do more than make furtive little
excursions round the house, and furtive questions to the neighbours,
none of whom had seen Isabel. He had taken his meals as usual, cursing
Nelly’s ‘neebor’ for her bad cookery, and had occupied himself packing
all the day long; and at night he had gone away, neither of the
terrified women having strength of mind to stop or to interrogate him.
It was too late after his departure to take any further steps. They sat
up half the night in their terror, still thinking it possible that
Isabel might return. That morning they had roused the village and made
all sorts of frantic searches for her, and at last had ascertained that
she had been seen on her way to the Glebe. Such was the story which
Nelly told with unbounded fullness of detail. It left the public in more
profound ignorance and wilder wonder than before. He had gone away
taking everything with him; he had not even asked for her before his
departure, and she was too ill to afford any explanations.

It was when Isabel was just beginning to wake into faint gleams of
returning life that the visit was paid her which made so much commotion
on the Loch. Everybody had learned by this time that Stapylton had
‘taken it upon him’ to refuse permission to his wife to visit Ailie at
Ardnamore. And when Ailie, herself pale as a spirit and so weak that she
had to be lifted out of the carriage, passed through the village on her
way to the Glebe, the whole population stirred with a hope that now at
last the explanation was to come. The cottage was unusually full at the
time, of nurses and attendants. Miss Catherine herself rarely left the
little parlour where she waited the chances of Isabel’s strange
disorder; and Nelly Spence was in charge of little Margaret, and her
mother came and went helping Jean to attend upon the patient. It was
thus into a little community, with all grades represented, that Ailie
came leaning on her mother’s arm. She was worn to a shadow, and so weak
that she could scarcely keep upright; over her white dress she wore a
large veil of black crape, for she was now a widow. Her appearance was
not less extraordinary than before, but her visionary eyes had lost
their wildness, and a softened expression had come over her face.

‘I am dying myself,’ she said to Miss Catherine, ‘and I would fain see
Isabel before I go. Ye needna fear me now. I would like to tell her just
that I’m reconciled in my mind. She has seen my sore trouble. No, I’ll
say nothing to disturb her; I’m dying myself, as you may see.’

‘Hoot no, my bonnie woman! hoot no!’ said her mother who supported her;
‘when the bonnie weather comes, and you get your feet on the May
gowans--ye see, Miss Catherine, it’s a’ the grief and trouble she’s had,
and poor Ardnamore taken from us so sudden at the last.’

But to Miss Catherine there was nothing sublime in the spectacle of the
dauntless old woman supporting on her arm the dying creature who ought
to have been the support of her old age, and facing the world
courageously with her pathetic fictions to the last. To her, Janet was
no champion-mother, but a worldly old woman, bent upon elevating the
social position of her child. ‘I am not afraid of you, Ailie,’ said Miss
Catherine, ‘why should I be? Isabel, poor thing! has her reason, though
she’s weak. Sit down, and I’ll ask if she can see you. You are far from
strong yourself.’

‘I am dying,’ said Ailie, softly, with a smile which lit up her face.
‘Eh, and when I think upon Margaret! She will be _my_ sister where I’m
going. Tell Isabel that. Life has been a burden and a trouble, though I
thought it was so good. Tell Isabel. It has been hard on her, too.’

‘Oh, how hard!’ Miss Catherine said to herself, with an involuntary
tear, as she went into the inner room. ‘Two young creatures, still so
young, one overwhelmed in the conflict, and about to die and escape from
it; the other fated, perhaps, to remain and live and bear the scars and
the brand of it for years. Was it not well with Margaret, who, of all
the penalties of living, had only death to bear? The old lady bent over
Isabel in her bed, and kissed her forehead with unusual emotion. ‘Can
you see Ailie, my dear?’ she asked, and a little gleam of eagerness came
into the sufferer’s eyes. Miss Catherine ushered the visitors into the
room, but would not stay to listen to the strange conversation that
passed between them. It was not that she was wanting in curiosity, but
that the pity of it was too much for even her strong nerves. She
returned to the parlour with a flood of impatient tears coming to her
eyes. They had been to blame. Ailie had married for--what? This severe
judge said for ambition--a man incomprehensible to her, whom she did
not, and could not love, and who sought her only in the madness of
disappointment and grief. Such was the common-sense view of the matter,
and the end was, as might have been expected, misery and despair. And
Isabel; Isabel had done worse than Ailie. She had sinned against her
womanhood--her dead husband, her living child. She had loved, she had
taken her own way, and misery was the result. Miss Catherine, looking
back into her own experience, could remember a time when she too had
wanted her own way, and had given it up proudly, and sacrificed her
heart. Was she the better for it? This long calm of hers, or Isabel’s
brief fever--which was the least like that vision of joy and strength
which the imagination calls life? A few hot tears fell from her old
eyes. It was hard to pronounce any judgment, even now.

Ailie tottered to Isabel’s bedside, supported by her mother’s arm.
‘Since you canna come to me, I have come to you,’ she said. ‘Isabel,
I’ve come to tell ye I am reconciled in my mind. He sent me over word
before he died that _yon_ was no message from the Lord; it was his own
mad will, and no my God that said it. We’ve sinned, and we’re punished;
but His word stands fast. Eh, but I’m content!’

‘Oh, Ailie,’ said Isabel, looking wistfully from the bed, ‘I cannot
follow what you say.’

‘Never mind, it will come back some time,’ said Ailie; ‘and I’m come to
bless you, Isabel Diarmid. I was uplifted in my mind, and deceived
myself, but you, a simple lass, spoke the truth. Ye were right when ye
bid me not to wed, and ye were right when ye bid me say farewell to him
that came back nae mair. He perished with the sword, as I said; and now
I’m going after him, and to Margaret. Margaret will be _my_ sister. O
Isabel, rouse up in your mind! Give me a word to say to Margaret; I’m
going to her now.’

The tears came in a flood to Isabel’s eyes. All this time they had
burned with fever, neither sleep nor tears coming to refresh them. ‘O my
Margaret!’ she cried; and then Jean interposed in terror, not aware how
great a relief to the patient’s brain was this outburst of tears.

‘She canna bear it,’ said Jean. ‘O Ailie, my woman, come away.’

‘Jean,’ said old Janet, fiercely turning upon her, ‘that’s no a way to
speak to Mrs. Diarmid of Ardnamore.’

Thus the tragic and the trifling met together as everywhere. Ailie took
no notice of either. She stooped over the bed, and kissed, as she had
never done before, the face of the woman who had been so strangely
connected with her life.

‘I’ll tell her a’ you say,’ she cried; ‘I’ll carry her a’ the love in
your heart; and the Lord bless you, Isabel. You’re no like her, and
you’re not like me, but the like of you is best for this life.’

‘O Ailie, my bonnie woman,’ cried Jean, unmoved by the mother’s
remonstrances, in the height of her own anxiety, ‘she canna bear it;
come away!’

‘Life’s an awfu’ riddle--an awfu’ riddle,’ said Ailie, ‘and her and me
we’ve guessed wrong; but the Lord will set a’ right.’

These were Ailie’s last words so far as concerned the inmates of the
Glebe. When she died, some time after, her death-bed ejaculations became
the property of the parish, and were repeated far and wide, and finally
made into a book. It was said that the power returned to her at the
last, and that she prophesied and ended her existence in a blaze of
spiritual triumph. These last utterances of exulting faith were heard by
many, and could not be gainsaid. But this was the end and sum of her
testimony so far as concerned Isabel and her own life.




CHAPTER XLVII


Isabel’s recovery was slow and tedious. The strain, both of body and
mind, had been so great, and her spirit was so broken, that it was often
in doubt whether the uncertain balance would be for death or life.

The parish had waited, after the first flash of wonder was over, with
patience scarcely to be looked for, for the explanation which might be
expected on her recovery. And the little circle round her had specially
cherished this hope, as was natural. Miss Catherine, in her higher
degree, and Jean Campbell and her friends, waited with calm, knowing
that the revelation must first be made to them. ‘Don’t weary yourself,
my dear,’ said the former. ‘I will wait your own time.’ But Isabel made
no reply to this insinuated question. She ignored their wonder with a
silent resolution which it was difficult to make any head against. ‘When
you have anything to say to me, you know I am always at your service,
Isabel,’ Miss Catherine added, a week after she had first signified her
readiness to listen. ‘Thank you,’ Isabel had said, faintly; but she said
nothing more. Then Jean made an attempt in her own way.

‘My bonnie woman,’ said Jean, ‘eh, it’s pleasant to see ye in your ain
house again, as I never thought to see you! But you’ll no bide? I canna
expect it, I ken that. And, oh! how we’ll miss you, the bairns and me.’

‘I mean to stay if you will let me,’ said Isabel, whose pale cheek
always flushed when this subject was propounded. ‘Margaret and me.’

‘Let you!’ cried Jean: ‘and dearly welcome. As if it wasna your own
house and hers, the bonnie lamb! But it’s mair than I could expect that
you should stay.’

Isabel made no answer. She treated Jean’s artful address as a mere
remark, and no question. Her face would be a shade sadder; her eye more
languid all the evening after--but that was all.

Perhaps, of all the eager, curious people about her, the one most
difficult to silence was the Dominie, who had taken to coming across the
braes every evening while Isabel was so ill, and now found it difficult
to give up the habit. He would sit opposite to her in the little parlour
while the spring evening lengthened, and watch her words and her looks
with an inquisition which he could not restrain. ‘It’s like old times to
have ye back,’ the Dominie would say: and a faint smile would be
Isabel’s answer. She was always at work now--reading much--trying to
teach herself a variety of new accomplishments, labouring at a dozen
different pursuits with a pathetic earnestness that went to her
visitor’s heart.

‘What do you want with all these books?’ he said, as he sat at the
parlour window looking out upon the darkling Loch.

‘To learn,’ she said. They were some of the minister’s old Italian
books, of which he had been so fond.

‘To learn!--what for? It’s an accomplishment will be of little use to
you,’ said the Dominie; ‘unless it is _there_ you are going when you
leave here.’

‘It is for Margaret,’ said Isabel, with a quivering lip--‘I would like
her to learn when she is old enough what her father knew.’

‘Ah, that’s a good thought,’ said the Dominie, taken by surprise; and
then he added, ‘But you cannot give your life to little Margaret--nor
carry such things about with you through the world.’

‘I will have time enough here,’ she said, under her breath.

‘But, my dear!--we cannot expect you will be here all your life--that
would be good for us, but ill for you.’

‘And why should it be ill for me?’

‘Isabel! I must go back to your old name,’ said the Dominie; ‘I cannot
call you by that lad’s name. Are you another man’s wife, or are ye no?’

And then the self-sustained creature, who had resisted so many attempts
to penetrate her secret, fell into a passion of sudden tears.

‘I am his wife,’ she cried, ‘but I will never see him again. Call me
Isabel, or call me by my good man’s name; and ask me no more.’

Strong as the Dominie’s curiosity was, he could not persist in face of
this appeal and of the tears which accompanied it; but he carried the
news to Miss Catherine, who day by day became more perplexed and more
anxious to know the real state of affairs. His partial success inspired
the old lady. Next day she went up to the Glebe, determined to show no
mercy.

‘Isabel,’ she said, solemnly, ‘it’s time, for your own sake, that your
friends should know. I am not speaking of the world. You may keep
silence as you please for them that’s outside, but your friends should
know. I saw ye married with my own eyes; there could be nothing wrong
about that?’

‘There was nothing wrong,’ said Isabel.

‘Then, my dear, tell us--tell me--what _is_ wrong? Has he gone to
America, as they all say?’

‘So far as I know,’ was the answer, spoken so low that the inquisitor
could scarcely hear.

‘And do you mean to go after him, Isabel?’

A shudder ran through her frame. ‘Oh no, no--never more!’ she cried,
hiding her face in her hands. If it was longing or loathing, Miss
Catherine could not tell, but she thought it was the former. Whatever it
is, she is fond of him still, was what she said in her heart.

‘Is not that giving up your duty?’ Miss Catherine continued, pitiless.
‘Isabel, there is no love lost between him and me; but I could not
counsel you to abandon your duty for all that.’

‘Oh, ask me no more questions,’ cried Isabel, with a gesture of despair;
and that was all that could be torn from her whatever anyone might say.

When she was well enough to go so far, she made a secret pilgrimage to
her husband’s grave. The whole parish knew of it before the week was
out, and drew its conclusions; but nobody suspected why it was that she
sat so long, wrapt in musing and solitude, in that spot where the
minister and Margaret slept side by side. ‘God grant her her wits, puir
thing!’ said one of the village gossips. ‘There she sat among the grass;
and every bit weed that caught her eye, and the moss on the tombstone,
all cleared away. You would have said it was a gardener in a garden at
his work.’ Some thought it was penitence for her sin against him, and
some that it was a compunctious regret for her ‘good man.’ Nobody knew
that Isabel had buried in her husband’s grave something more than her
grief and remorse for her infidelity--another token more awful than
anything so trifling could be supposed to be. She worked at it unseen
with her slender, trembling fingers, making a place for it deep under
the sod, and there hid the innocent present of her first affection--the
little brooch, which had been plucked from the dead man--the fatal sign
which had made her existence a desolation, and rent asunder her heart
and her life.

And common life crept up round her, like the rising tide on the beach,
and set her softly afloat in the old habits, the old routine, the
current of the past. Little Margaret rose once more to be the chief
object, and occupation, and interest of the quiet days. Within the first
year there came a claim upon her, of which her lawyer informed Isabel,
and which oozed out through the district after a while by those
invisible channels which make everybody’s secrets known. It was a bill
drawn upon her from a far distant corner of America, which she paid
without hesitation, though it cost her many sacrifices. The same thing
was repeated several times within the course of a dozen years; and then
there came a letter to her, in a strange handwriting----

No one had mentioned her legal name for a long time before that. She saw
only those who called her Isabel. But after the coming of this letter,
it happened to her by chance to encounter the old Laird, Miss
Catherine’s brother, come upon a rare visit to his own country. ‘So this
is Isabel,’ he said to her kindly, patting her head as if she had been
but still a child. ‘Mrs--Mrs---- I forget the name.’

‘Lothian,’ she said, distinctly, before the servants, as was afterwards
remembered. And from that hour was called by her old name.

And little Margaret lived and grew. A woman cannot be utterly wretched,
whatever tragedies may have happened in her life, so long as she has a
woman-child to make her live anew. She was even happy in her way,
developing into a hundred gracious forms of being, which Stapylton’s
wife could never have known; and had her life after life was over, like
the most of us--the one, an existence brief and full with sorrow and joy
in it, and a crowd of events; the other, long, tranquil, with no facts
at all to speak of, marking the passage of the years--nothing to tell:
but yet, perhaps, the life that bulks most largely in the records in the
skies.


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