IT HAS EVER been a matter of remark to me, how swift the time passes after the turn of the year; for the cold of the spring time is but like a blae morning, whereas, before, it is like a long and weary night, when you feel that the darkness has had a good downsitting, and are mostly feared that it may so abide.
So it came to pass with us, that the rest of Claud’s college course, which was but till the beginning of April, slipped cannily by. A gentleman, a friend of the Elders of Bourtree, had offered Claud the presentation to a parish in the east country, as Assistant and Successor to an old minister, who could not overtake all the labour himself, by reason of being frail: always, if it should be so ordained, as that the people would give my nephew, Claud, a right and harmonious call, for the gentleman that had the patronage was come of a good stock, and was one of those that have ever stood firm by the Kirk, and keeped the side of right discipline and order, along with a Christian freedom.
So, as I was saying, this having been offered to Claud, it was judged best that there should be no delay in him getting through his trials for license, and so being ready, whenever his Master should call on him. So the first meeting of Presbytery, which was upon the first Wednesday in April, Claud was begun with his trials.
It is not common for folk to attend the meetings of country Presbyteries, though they are open for them that like to go; therefore, I did not hear myself how Claud did, but both the minister, my brother, and Mr. Wallace, the helper at Burrowstoun, and even Dr. Dreigh himself, though I think not he had any great love for the family (being a sore Moderate), testified to me that he came through them in a most creditable way. So he was licensed in May, and, like his father before him, preached his first sermon in the Kirk of Pasturelands. I was up bearing him, and the kirk was uncommon full, seeing all the folk knew him, and liked him well. And truly, it was as good a sermon as needed to be, and was an evidence to me that the God of our Fathers had a work for the lad in his day and generation.
In the meantime, Grace and her friends had come to London, and were dwelling there, the family living in a gay way, but still leaving Grace in her own solitary room, like a prisoner in the house; the which, though the bairn pined, being ever alone, she was yet in a manner pleased with also, seeing that by what she heard her cousins speaking of their company, they were not folk she would care for meeting with. Also Grace, as far as could be judged by her letters, was more content, and her mind seemed to be growing in wisdom and stature; and doubtless the bit glints she had got of the world, for all so unsatisfactory as they were, were yet aye helping to make her of a more complete and perfect spirit, (no that I am meaning that any mortal can be perfect, seeing we are all prone to iniquity, but only in the way of her mind, that she was gathering knowledge), than she could have gotten abiding ever at Sunnyside; which made me also comfort myself concerning her, seeing that the Lord was ordering this trouble for her good, and would, doubtless, bring pleasantness out of it, in His own time.
But there was one thing I aye marvelled at, and that was, that though her aunt and her father had ceased to contend with her, maybe, from a natural yielding of their spirits, or, maybe, because she was far from all her friends and in their own hands, yet, for all that, the bairn’s heart turned not to them, but every now and then in her letters there would burst out a yearning for home, and I know not how often she came over that place in the letters of the godly and persecuted minister, Samuel Rutherford, where he says that the swallows about the old Kirk of Anwoth were blessed birds — I think it is in one of the letters I have written down here. The bairn’s mind seemed to be just in a manner possessed with it.
And as for my niece Mary, she was of necessity growing older too, though it grieves me that I cannot say there was much word of more wisdom, seeing the bit impatient way was there still, and to my sight stronger than it had been, even though I myself had grave converse with her concerning it, and had even told the minister, for I saw that he noticed it not; and truly, to do the bairn justice, it was only perceptible whiles.
Whenever, either at the Manse or Sunnyside, there was any word of Lilliesleaf or of the folk at the Castle, it seemed just to put a perverse spirit into the bairn, which, doubtless, was no great wonder, seeing the way Mrs. Elphinstone had behaved, and as for Mr. Allan, it was soon plain to me, that to say he would be at any place, was just sure to keep Mary away, though she might be keen of going before.
Mr. Allan himself I continued to see now and then, and still the young man keeped me in perplexity and trouble with his varyings; for he aye remembered sometimes that he was a man of responsibilities, and yet he was aye plunging into that wild water of pleasure, that folk never come out of undefiled.
It seemed to me, that even his mother, Mrs. Elphinstone, was feared at what she had done, and trembled lest the stone she had set a rolling with her own hands, should crush herself, before the play was played out; for Mr. Allan, him that she had boasted of to me as being so good a son, was beginning, now that she had learned him to make his own quiet and pleasant home just a place to fill full of strangers, and to have festivities in, to be perverse and of an evil spirit, too.
Whiles, after he had been impatient and forgotten the respect that was due to his mother, he would be like to break his heart with grief; but the evil spirit just came back again when that was bye, for if it is a sore thing to flesh and blood to wrestle with the enemy when he is coming in at the door, it is sorer still to withstand him when he is dwelling in, and ruling over, the inmost spirit.
But, woes me! for the weak mother that had to fight the battle with the father first, and syne, when she was spent with trouble and near the end of her pilgrimage, to have to begin again with the son — woes me! more than all, that the last battle was of her own bringing on.
But, as I was saying, my nephew Claud had got his license, and was just abiding awhile at home, resting himself after his long college work, and writing sermons. Also preaching upon the Sabbath days in our own kirk at Pasturelands, and for divers ministers round about, it being aye their custom in our part (as it should aye be where they dwell together like brethren) for ministers to render help and service to one another, on the principle of the old proverb, “Giff-gaff makes good friends.”
So, while Claud was abiding at home in the Manse, there came letters from Mr. Kirkman of Dourbraes, the gentleman that had the presentation, asking him to go and preach in the kirk, that the folk might have a trial of him. And there being a consultation in the family, it was decided that Claud should go, for although, as Grace said, the charge of Pasturelands had grown to be hereditary in the name of Maitland, and my brother Claud would desire to leave his work in it to his son, as my father did to him, still the minister himself was a strong man yet, no far past his prime, and needed not assistance in the labours of the ministry; and, therefore, it was right, seeing the lad was like to be a most acceptable preacher, that he should exercise his gifts in the field that was opening to him, especially as it was in troublous times for the Kirk, and she had need of all that regarded her purity, and prayed for the peace of Jerusalem.
So, the day before he was to go away, he came down to bid me good bye, and Mary with him. It so happened, that Mary needed to go down to James Selvage’s shop, to buy some matter of providing for her brother, and so, being left to ourselves, Claud and me fell into converse.
“And are you to stay in the Manse of Dourhills itself, Claud?” said I. “I have heard it said among ministers, that had been in that part, that old Mr. Smail was a penurious body, and minded not what the Apostle said, that bishops should be given to hospitality.”
“No, aunt,” said Claud; “Mr. Kirkman invites me to stay at Dourbraes this time. Of course, if I go back, I must get some place of my own. I am not quite sure that the charge will be a very comfortable one, for old ministers, unless they are very saints, do not care much for a strange Assistant and Successor; and it is scarcely natural they should.”
“I am sure it would have been our desire, Claud,” said I, “that you should exercise your gifts among the folk of Pasturelands, as your fathers have done before you; but at this present time, it behoves you to set your hand to the work, where Providence directs. I doubt not Mr. Kirkman will be rejoiced in his heart, if the people are moved towards you; for, according to all I have heard of Mr. Smail, he is but a coldrife preacher, being a Moderate, and a great slave to the paper.”
My nephew Claud laughed, and said he to me:
“He is a strange body. He wanted Gilbert Anderson to be his assistant, you know, aunt, and wrote to his uncle, Mr. Coulter, of Kraims, a few years ago, offering him forty pounds a-year — to preach every alternate Sabbath, and do all the work of the parish.”
“But with his board, Claud,” said I, “that might not be so bad.”
“But it was without his board, aunt,” said Claud. “Mr. Coulter wrote back, praising Gibbie, but remonstrating about the smallness of the stipend; and then came another letter from Mr. Smail, saying, that as he had heard much in Gilbert’s favour, he had made up his mind, though he could ill afford it, (besides that he would always be welcome at the Manse, and Mr. Kirkman and the rest of the heritors were uncommonly kind,) to offer him — forty guineas!”
“It’s no possible, Claud,” said I.
“But it’s perfectly true, aunt,” said Claud. “Gibbie showed the letter to the whole class; for he had heard of the tutorship he is in now, just at the time, and he was always a sad inconsiderate fellow, and would have his joke, whatever came of it. But there was one poor lad, who was then in his last year, and was licensed very soon after, who really applied to Mr. Smail, and took the place. Poor Robert Sutor! — I grow a child again, whenever I think of him. After struggling how sorely, no one knows, to get through his college course, to go there when he was finished, and work himself to death.”
“Bless me, Claud,” said I, “did the poor young man die?”
“Yes, aunt,” said Claud, “he died. How he lived the two years he was at Dourhills, I know not, but Andrew Mettle, who went out to India a month or two ago, used to tell us, that his sermons, during the last winter, were like lightning flashes through the old place. Poor Robert! with all his gifts, to run so short and so dark a course!”
“Poor lad!” said I. “Maybe the short life of him was for a warning to the like of you, Claud, to be aye mindful that your Master whiles comes suddenly. But what has come over the bairn Mary? She should have been back by this time.”
“Mary is not like herself just now, aunt,” said Claud, in a serious way. “Is it because Grace is away, think you, that Mary has changed so?”
“Hout, no, laddie,” said I; “the bairn is but coming to graver years, and getting more thought, and doubtless, the loss of Grace is a sore loss forbye, but it can never be that we are altogether parted, and it behoves us just to bide our time in quietness. Truly, it is me that am most like to be lone and dreary, for the light hearts of the like of Mary and her get above it soon; for all that they may aye have a bit sorrow at being parted. You are graver yourself, Claud; it is but that the bairn is coming to years.”
Claud gave a bit shake of his head, and as he stooped down to lift up my due of worsted, which had fallen upon the floor (for I was working him some stockings, seeing it was our desire that he should have a good supply of all needful things, and him leaving home) I heard him saying between his teeth, “It would have been well for us all, if Grace had never come to Sunnyside.”
“What is that you say, Claud?” said I, in wonder and astonishment. “Oh, laddie! it would break the poor bairn’s heart to hear such a word from you.”
Claud put down the due upon the table, and his face was very red with the stooping, as I have felt my own oftentimes when I have looted down for anything.
“I did not mean to say that, aunt,” he said in a humble, subdued way; “but when there is so little prospect of us ever meeting again, except as strangers, you might excuse us for almost wishing that we had never learned to set so high a value on what we have lost so soon.”
The eye of my nephew Claud, met mine as he said that, and up he started from his seat, and turned round to the window.
It was as if a breath of wind had lifted up the curtain, and I looked for a moment into his inmost heart. Woes me!
It never rains, folk say, but it pours: it was getting late in the afternoon by that time, and Claud and me had not begun our converse again, when Mary came fleeting into the parlour with her bonnet on, and a face of sore distress. I cried out what was the matter, and so did Claud; but the bairn gave a glance out at the window, and cried “There he is,” and ran up the stair without another word.
I looked at Claud, and Claud at me, and I had risen from my seat to follow Mary, when Mr. Allan Elphinstone came in at the open door, and before he spoke a word, he looked round the room in an anxious and distressed manner.
“Where is she, Miss Maitland?” he said to me. “I beg you to tell her it was not my fault, I forgot myself. Ask her to speak to me for but a moment. I entreat you to tell her, Miss Maitland, that the fault was not mine.”
“What is it you are speaking of, Mr. Allan,” said I in a grave way, for I was feared that Mary had cause of offence; but truly, it seemed that Mr. Allan could say nothing, but that it was not his fault and would she no speak to him, and would I no ask her to forgive him.
My heart was sore within me, for it was clear that the young man, Mr. Allan, was flushed and excited with wine, the which, I knew well, was a sin the bairn Mary loathed with a perfect hatred. So Claud, my nephew, came forward and said he, “Mr. Elphinstone, you will be so good as explain this to me. What is it my sister has to forgive?”
Mr. Allan came to himself as Claud said that, and they both sat down upon seats: whereupon I went away quickly to Mary, the poor distressed bairn.
So Mary told me that when she came out of James Selvage’s shop, Mr. Allan (he was just new down from London, and had not seen her for a while) was riding by, and more gentlemen with him, and when he saw her, he came quick off his horse, and wanted her to take his arm, and would come with her to Sunnyside. And, with that, some more of them came off their horses too, and being in an excited state, one of the gentlemen pushed in between Mary and Mr. Allan, and would have her take him with her instead.
So being at the foot of the brae, and no far from home, the bairn in her fear and trouble had flown out from among them, and never stopped till she was safe in Sunnyside. The poor bairn I her heart was beating all the time like a new-caged bird.
“But, Mary,” said I, “was Mr. Allan no angry at the other young man? An he were but himself, he would lose a finger before he gave you cause to flee from him. Mary, my bairn, Mr. Allan said nought to anger you?”
“Oh, aunt,” cried Mary, “what will become of him?”
“Whisht, Mary, my dear,” said I, “you must not say that.”
“He said nothing to anger me, aunt,” said Mary, in a quieter manner, “and I am not angry, but I am grieved. Oh, aunt! if he was my brother, it would break my heart.”
“Whisht, Mary,” said I again, “let us no speak about that, the now. It is a thing the world thinks little of.”
“And what is it to me what the world thinks,” said Mary, with a slow voice, “and by and bye — what will it be to him?”
Alas! that the same old story should be so often told over again. There were more things than affright rising up in bitterness within the breast of the innocent bairn, and her scarce out eighteen.
We had not been long in the room, and Mary was but settling into a measure of composedness, when Claud came to the door, and asked if he might come in, the which I bade him do.
“Mary,” said Claud, “will you come down and say a word to young Lilliesleaf? You were only frightened, after all, and he is so much distressed about it. You have effectually sobered him for one day. Do come, Mary.”
“Aunt, will you go for me,” whispered Mary to me, “I cannot see him again, at least not now. Say I am not angry, but grieved and distressed. I cannot go down till he is away.”
So judging it best to leave the bairn at that season to herself, I took Claud, my nephew, by the arm, and went away.
And a face of more shame and trouble than Mr. Allan’s, I scarce ever looked upon; and little comfort he got from what Mary had bidden me say; but after a half hour, in which there was little speech and small cheerfulness among us, the young man went away, and we saw him galloping along the road to Pasturelands, as if some ill thing was chasing him.
And after that, nothing would please the bairn Mary, but that I should go up with Claud and her to the Manse. I know not how often I reasoned with her concerning it, but there was aye the petition: “Come, aunt, only come.”
At last, seeing the bairn had been in trouble and affright, and was looking but ill after it, I consented to go, which, doubtless, caused wonderment at first in the Manse; only they were, at that season, taken up with other things. Also they marvelled much concerning Mary’s bit little tribulation, and were grieved about Mr. Allan; but being busy getting Claud’s things ready, there was less speech about it than might have been at another time.
So the next day, early in the forenoon, Claud went away, and we all walked with him as far down as Sedgie Bridge, where the coach passed, and saw him mounted on to it, and watched it careering far away on the road, till it turned round by the shoulder of the hill, and we saw it no more, but went our ways back to the Manse with sorrowful hearts.
We were not well in at the garden gate, (I am meaning the two Marys and me, for the minister my brother, had left us at the turn of the road, with the intent of calling on Jacob Wightman, who had been long ill with rheumatics, and was bedridden forebye, by reason of being a great age), when Betty, the oldest servant maid came running to us to say, that Mrs. Elphinstone and the young Laird had come to call, and were sitting up the stair waiting for us.
So we went in, Mary keeping between her mother and me, and scarce ever lifting her eyes.
I thought Mr. Allan never would have been done, making his apologies, no that he spoke so very much either, but every now and then when the converse had turned upon other things, a sudden flush would come over his face, and he would glance at Mary and then stammer something I know not what; and truly I think he knew not very well himself. Mrs. Elphinstone had grown white and thin, and had the look of a heart-break in her eye, even as it used to be in the old times, when Lilliesleaf himself was alive, and I was wading through my own tribulations.
They say she dwined sore the time Mr. Allan was away at London, seeing she had scarce ever wanted him all his days before, if it was not just a day or two at a time. And aye so wistfully as she would look at Mary. The poor proud woman! she had found out her sore mistake, and maybe it was too late now.
For oh! but it is an ill thing to wile a young spirit from the good that it should be wedded to. If Mrs. Elphinstone had not been feared that her son, the young Laird of Lilliesleaf, might be overmuch taken up with the daughter of the poor minister of Pasturelands, she maybe would not have sought to throw him so much in the way of temptations; and, past a moderate share of honest festivity now and then with his country neighbours, or a bit sojourn in Edinburgh, or even London itself, when he was tired, it’s my belief, that if she had but let him alone, Mr. Allan would have had no hankering after what is falsely called pleasure; but just would have made a right endeavour to live for the benefit of the folk about him, and for the glory of his Maker, as a reasonable man should do. And truly, even if there had been no other world, but this weary and wicked one, would that no have been far better both for him and her?
It was sore pain to me, all the time they stayed in the Manse, to see the downcast looks of the bairn, Mary. What with the trouble of the past night, and Claud, her brother, going away, the poor young thing could scarcely hold up her head, and I saw that her eyelids, when she looked down upon the hit seam she had taken into her hand, were bigger than I had ever noticed them — the poor bairn! She had aye shed her tears freely before, for her bits of griefs might have been known to the whole countryside; but now she had begun to taste the sorer troubles that folk must hide in their own spirit; and her bit heart was swelling, like to burst within her: I knew by myself.
“Margaret,” said my sister Mary to me, when the mother and the son were away, and the bairn also had left the room, “what ails our Mary? Did you ever see so sorrowful a look upon so young a face? What has come over her?”
“It will be her brother going away, maybe, Mary,” said I. “A little thing makes a young heart heavy, and as little makes it light again. It is my hope that the dear bairn will get back a measure of her old blytheness before the week is out.”
“Ah! Maggie,” said my sister Mary to me, shaking her head, “you don’t think that.”
“And the bairn was troubled last night,” said I.
Mary my sister shook her head again, but said no more about it, for it was not a thing that could be spoken of, seeing Mr. Allan had said nothing either to her or to the minister, nor indeed to Mary herself, that we knew of, past just the way that he hung about her, wheresoever he could get near her. But, to my satisfaction, a moment after that, we heard Mary coming down the stairs, singing a psalm low to herself.
I like not commonly to hear folk going about a house in a light manner, singing what is a part of Scripture; but truly, considering that the bairn had been sore cast down, I was blythe to hear her at that time. —
“Thy foot he’ll not let slide, nor will He slumber that thee keeps.
Behold, He that keeps Israel, He slumbers not nor sleeps.”
And she had a most pleasant voice.
They would not hear of me going away that night, though it was my desire to do so; therefore, I abode till the next day, and then I wiled Mary down with me, promising to the minister and Mary, my sister, that I would send her up again on the Monday.
So we came home safe to Sunnyside; and the first thing Jenny told me was, that there was a letter lying in the parlour from Grace. So Mary and me got it opened soon, and lo! the first word I saw in it was the owerword of the old song, “There came a young man to my daddie’s door, A seeking me to woo!”
“Bless me, Mary,” said I, “is the bairn daft?”
“Aunt I aunt!” cried out our Mary, “it is dated from Edinburgh. Grace has come home again. I will read it to you.”
So Mary read the letter.
“My dear aunt, “There cam’ a young man to my daddie’s door, My daddie’s door, my daddie’s door.
There came a young man to my daddie’s door.
A seeking me to woo!”
“Do you think me daft? I am, indeed, so greatly exhilarated by finding myself so much nearer home, that I can hardly keep in proper bounds. Dear aunt, do you not think all these bad things may turn out not so very bad after all. My hope sprang up exultant, as fearless as our Mary’s, as soon as we crossed the border. Who knows but I may arrive at Sunnyside some day, as unexpectedly as we have arrived in Edinburgh!
“You will think this has very little to do with the absurd text of this letter. Wait a little, aunt, till I get time to tell you. The young man who came to my daddie’s door last week, is the cause of all my rejoicing. He is — but I must begin a new paragraph to do him justice.
“He is, then, the most fascinating, the handsomest, politest, smallest specimen of mankind you ever saw. Have patience with poor Grace, aunt, even if you think her outrageous in her unwonted exultation. He is (tins braw wooer of mine) to speak seriously, an accomplished (I speak by my cousin’s report) little man, with an eld baronetcy, and an extremely attenuated estate: Sir William Martyn of — , I do not recollect the territorial designation.
“Accidentally I had seen him once or twice in London; and two or three days since, he suddenly made his appearance in a little morning room of my aunt’s, where I chanced to be sitting alone, and made formal offer of his small self, and his small possessions. I was very much astonished, of course, and at a loss for a proper form of saying ‘No,’ so as to avoid mortifying the poor little man, but had managed to stammer out something, and had just met the most comical look of disappointment possible, when my father entered the room.
“The unfortunate small Sir William shrunk, and took leave instantly, and thereupon my father began to question me — heard my report with the greatest amiability, and assured me in his blandest tone, that had my decision been other than it was, he had his measures taken — nevertheless, he was pleased. I had done quite as he wished me.
“Twenty-four hours after, we were on our way home — though before there had not been the slightest indication of an intention to return.
“To-day, my cousin Harriet having heard the story, from her mother, I suppose, condescended to joke on the subject.
“Madeline shaking her rich curls, and glancing at me contemptuously, ‘Wondered at Sir William. People said he had good taste.’
“‘Oh! he’s a fortune hunter,’ said Harriet, hastily.
“I looked up. Harriet stopped abruptly, with an evident confusion, that gave point to what she said.
“‘Is he so?’ said Mrs. Lennox, turning upon her daughter the most withering deadly look I ever saw, and speaking so distinctly and steadily, as to attract my attention still more. ‘Your cousin may feel herself greatly flattered then, since any proposals to her must be perfectly disinterested.’
“I might have thought nothing of Harriet’s remarks, had my aunt taken no notice of it; but Mrs. Lennox’s very marked speech fixed it in my memory, and set my whole fleet of surmises respecting Oakenshaw afloat again. Can it be possible, think you, aunt? If I could only see Mr. Monteith!
“Jessie tells me that I am honoured sometimes to be a subject of gossip among the ladies-maids of the household. The waiting gentlewomen of Mrs and the Misses Lennox, are in the habit of entertaining visitors of the sisterhood with stories of my eccentricities. I am anxious to live like a nun, they say, and cannot bear the sight of a stranger, and am so crack-brained, that my friends are glad to keep me out of sight. Moreover, it is rumoured, that I can bake cakes and speak Latin, two very incongruous accomplishments, certainly, but imagination does not always, in her vagaries, study consistency. These scraps of gossip, indignantly resented by Jessie, drop from her sometimes in the course of our long conversations, and other scraps more interesting, but probably quite as apocryphal, float in through the same medium from without.
“One stranger of the sisterhood, whose mistress was a Scotch woman, professes to have heard her lady importuning Mrs. Lennox for permission to see me, on the score that she knew my mother, and professes, moreover, that her lady did not believe my kind aunt’s story of my unfitness for company, but said indignantly that the Hunters were no fools, nor indeed the Maitlands either, and that she did not know where my folly came from, for certainly it was not inherited.
“That was consolatory; but it it not very terrible, aunt, that one must suffer this imputation in silence and have no means of clearing oneself? I am resolved, the first time I can steal out, to make one great endeavour to find Mr. Monteith’s house, and ask him plainly what my position is.
“Mary is writing me very short letters now. Does anything ail our Mary, aunt? Do not let that young Laird of yours throw glamour over her, at least till I come home. See how confident I am growing of my home-coming!
“And now that Claud is licensed, where is he? They will not let him stay at home in inglorious ease, I am sure; but I hope the great waves of this stirring time will not carry him far away, but only suffice to cast him on some pleasant shore, not far from Pasturelands. I can almost think I am home again, the presentiment (do you believe in them, aunt? — I do, most devoutly) is so strong upon me, of a speedy return. I wish I had heard Claud’s first sermon.
“I am still in Edinburgh, however, and among Lennoxes, not Maitlands, so I must bid you goodbye again.
“GRACE MAITLAND.”
It is a pleasant and cheering thing to see hope and blytheness in any place, and the letter put a kind of life into us. But I thought within myself that Grace, if she were home, would wonder and grieve sore at the paleness of our Mary’s cheek, though the bairn seemed not so sorrowful either, or, if she was, hid it well.
But woes me! it is a hard thing, whether it be in age or youth, to sound the deepness of folk’s own spirit, and try how far down the pain can go.