Alec Forbes of Howglen
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In this mood she went to the week-evening service at Mr Turnbull's chapel. There she sat listless, looking for no help, and caring for none of the hymns or prayers. At length Mr Turnbull began to read the story of the Prodigal Son. And during the reading her distress vanished like snow in the sunshine. For she took for her own the character of the elder brother, prayed for forgiveness, and came away loving Alec Forbes more than ever she had loved him before. If God could love the Prodigal, might she not, ought she not to love him too? -The deepest source of her misery, though she did not know that it was, had been the fading of her love to him.
And as she walked home through the dark, the story grew into other comfort. A prodigal might see the face of God, then! He was no grand monarch, but a homely father. He would receive her one day, and let her look in his face.
Nor did the trouble return any more. From that one moment, no feeling of repugnance ever mingled with her thought of Alec. For such a one as he could not help repenting, she said. He would be sure to rise and go back to his Father. She would not have found it hard to believe even, that, come early, or linger late, no swine-keeping son of the Father will be able to help repenting at last; that no God-born soul will be able to go on trying to satisfy himself with the husks that the swine eat, or to refrain from thinking of his Father's house, and wishing himself within its walls even in the meanest place; or that such a wish is prelude to the best robe and the ring and the fatted calf, when the Father would spend himself in joyous obliteration of his son's past and its misery -having got him back his very own, and better than when he went, because more humble and more loving.
When Mrs Forbes came home, she entered into no detail, and was disinclined to talk about the matter at all, probably as much from dissatisfaction with herself as with her son, But Annie's heart blossomed into a quiet delight when she learned that the facts were not so bad as the reports, and that there was no doubt he would yet live them all down.
The evil time was drawing nigh, ushered by gentler gales and snowdrops, when she must be turned out for the spring and summer. She would feel it more than ever, but less than if her aunt had not explained to her that she had a right to the shelter afforded her by the Bruces.
Meantime arrived a letter from Mr Cupples.
"Dear Madam, -After all the efforts of Mr Alec, aided by my best endeavours, but counteracted by the grief of knowing that his cousin, Miss Fraser, entertained a devoted regard for a worthless class-fellow of his -after all our united efforts, Mr Alec has not been able to pass more than two of his examinations. I am certain he would have done better but for the unhappiness to which I have referred, combined with the illness of Miss Fraser. In the course of a day or two, he will return to you, when, if you can succeed, as none but mothers can, in restoring him to some composure of mind, he will be perfectly able during the vacation to make up for lost time.
"I am, dear madam, your obedient servant,
"Cosmo Cupples."
Angry with Kate, annoyed with her son, vexed with herself, and indignant at the mediation of "that dirty vulgar little man," Mrs Forbes forgot her usual restraint, and throwing the letter across the table with the words "Bad news, Annie," left the room. But the effect produced upon Annie by the contents of the letter was very different.
Hitherto she had looked up to Alec as a great strong creature. Her faith in him had been unquestioning and unbounded. Even his wrong-doings had not impressed her with any sense of his weakness. But now, rejected and disgraced, his mother dissatisfied, his friend disappointed, and himself foiled in the battle of life, he had fallen upon evil days, and all the woman in Annie rose for his defence. In a moment they had changed places in the world of her moral imagination. The strong youth was weak and defenceless: the gentle girl opened the heart almost of motherhood, to receive and shelter the worn outraged man. A new tenderness, a new pity took possession of her. Indignant with Kate, angry with the professors, ready to kiss the hands of Mr Cupples, all the tenderness of her tender nature gathered about her fallen hero, and she was more like his wife defending him from her mother. Now she could be something if not to him yet for him. He had been a "bright particular star" "beyond her sphere," but now the star lay in the grass, shorn of its beams, and she took it to her bosom.
Two days passed. On the third evening in walked Alec, pale and trembling, evidently ill, too ill to be questioned. His breathing was short and checked by pain.
"If I hadn't come at once, mother," he said, "I should have been laid up there. It's pleurisy, Mr Cupples says."
"My poor boy!"
"Oh! I don't care."
"You've been working too hard, dear."
Alec laughed bitterly.
"I did work, mother; but it doesn't matter. She's dead."
"Who's dead?" exclaimed his mother.
"Kate's dead. And I couldn't help it. I tried hard. And it's all my fault too. Cupples says she's better dead. But I might have saved her."
He started from the sofa, and went pacing about the room, his face flushed and his breath coming faster and shorter. His mother got him to lie down again, and asked no more questions. The doctor came and bled him at the arm, and sent him to bed.
When Annie saw him worn and ill, her heart swelled till she could hardly bear the aching of it. She would have been his slave, and she could do nothing. She must leave him instead. She went to her room, put on her bonnet and cloak, and was leaving the house when Mrs Forbes caught sight of her.
"Annie! what do you mean, child? You're not going to leave me?"
"I thought you wouldn't want me any more, ma'am."
"You silly child!"
Annie ran back to her room, thus compromising with a strong inclination to dance back to it.
When Mr Cupples and Alec had begun to place confidence in each other's self-denial, they cared less to dog each other. -Alec finding at the Natural Philosophy examination that he had no chance, gathered his papers, and leaving the room, wandered away to his former refuge when miserable, that long desolate stretch of barren sand between the mouths of the two rivers. Here he wandered till long after the dusk had deepened into night. -A sound as of one singing came across the links, and drew nearer and nearer. He turned in the direction of it, for something in the tones reminded him of Kate; and he almost believed the song was her nurse's ghostly ballad. But it ceased; and after walking some distance inland, he turned again towards the sea. The song rose once more, but now between him and the sea. He ran towards it, falling repeatedly on the broken ground. By the time he reached the shore, the singing had again ceased, but presently a wild cry came from seawards, where the waves far out were still ebbing from the shore. He dashed along the glimmering sands, thinking he caught glimpses of something white, but there was no moon to give any certainty. As he advanced he became surer, but the sea was between. He rushed in. Deeper and deeper grew the water. He swam. But before he could reach the spot, for he had taken to the water too soon, with another cry the figure vanished, probably in one of those deep pits which abound along that shore. Still he held on, diving many times, but in vain. His vigour was not now what it had once been, and at length he was so exhausted, that when he came to himself, lying on his back in the dry sands, he had quite forgotten how he came there. He would have rushed again into the water, but he could scarcely move his limbs. He actually crawled part of the way across the links to the college. There he inquired if Miss Fraser was in the house. The maid assured him that she was in her own room, whereupon he went home. But he had scarcely gone before they discovered that her room was deserted, and she nowhere to be found. The shock of this news rendered it impossible for him to throw off the effects of his exposure. But he lingered on till Mr Cupples compelled him to go home. Not even then, however, had her body been recovered. Alec was convinced that she had got into one of the quicksands; but it was cast ashore a few days after his departure, and it was well that he did not see it. He did not learn the fact till many years after.
It soon transpired that she had been out of her mind for some time. Indeed rumours of the sort had been afloat before. The proximate cause of her insanity was not certainly known. Some suspicion of the worthlessness of her lover, some enlightenment as to his perfidy, or his unaccountable disappearance alone, may have occasioned its manifestation. But there is great reason to believe that she had a natural predisposition to it. And having never been taught to provide for her own mental sustenance, and so nourish a necessary independence, she had been too ready to squander the wealth of a rich and lovely nature upon an unworthy person, and the reaction had been madness and death. But anything was better than marrying Beauchamp.
One strange fact in the case was her inexplicable aversion to water -either a crude prevision of her coming fate, or, in the mysterious operations of delirious reasoning, the actual cause of it. The sea, visible from her window over the dreary flat of the links, may have fascinated her, and drawn her to her death. Such cases are not unknown.
During the worst period of Alec's illness, he was ever wandering along that shore, or swimming in those deadly waters. Sometimes he had laid hold of the drowning girl and was struggling with her to the surface. Sometimes he was drawing her in an agony from the swallowing gullet of a quicksand, which held her fast, and swallowed at her all the time that he fought to rescue her from its jawless throat.
Annie took her turn in the sick chamber, watching beside the half-unconscious lad, and listening anxiously to the murmurs that broke through the veil of his dreams. The feeling with which she had received the prodigal home into her heart, spread its roots deeper and wider, and bore at length a flower of a pale-rosy flush -Annie's love revealed to herself -strong although pale, delicate although strong. It seemed to the girl she had loved him so always, only she had not thought about it. He had fought for her and endured for her at school; he had saved her life from the greedy waters of the Glamour at the risk of his own: she would be the most ungrateful of girls if she did not love him. -And she did love him with a quiet intensity peculiar to her nature.
Never had she happier hours than those in which it seemed that only the stars and the angels were awake besides herself. And if while watching him thus at night she grew sleepy, she would kneel down and pray God to keep her awake, lest any harm should befall Alec. Then she would wonder if even the angels could do without sleep always, and fancy them lying about the warm fields of heaven between their own shadowy wings. She would wonder next if it would be safe for God to close his eyes for one minute -safe for the world, she meant; and hope that, if ever he did close his eyes, that might not be the one moment when she should see his face. Then she would nod, and wake up with a start, flutter silently to her feet, and go and peep at the slumberer. Never was woman happier than Annie was during those blessed midnights and cold grey dawns. Sometimes, in those terrible hours after midnight that belong neither to the night nor the day, but almost to the primeval darkness, the terrors of the darkness would seize upon her, and she would sit "inhabiting trembling." But the lightest movement of the sleeper would rouse her, and a glance at the place where he lay would dispel her fears.
CHAPTER LXXIX
One night she heard a rustling amongst the bushes in the garden; and the next moment a subdued voice began to sing:
I waited for the Lord my God and patiently did bear;At length to me he did incline, my voice and cry to hear.He took me from a fearful pit, and from the miry clay,And on a rock he set my feet, establishing my way.The tune was that wildest of trustful wailings -Martyrs'.
"I didna ken that ye cared aboot psalm-tunes, Mr Cupples," murmured
Alec.
The singing went on and he grew restless.
It was an eerie thing to go out, but she must stop the singing. If it was Mr Cupples, she could have nothing to fear. Besides, a bad man would not sing that song. -As she opened the door, a soft spring wind blew upon her full of genial strength, as if it came straight from those dark blue clefts between the heavy clouds of the cast. Away in the clear west, the half-moon was going down in dreaming stillness. The dark figure of a little man stood leaning against the house, singing gently.
"Are you Mr Cupples?" she said.
The man started, and answered,
"Yes, my lass. And wha are ye?"
"I'm Annie Anderson. Alec's some disturbit wi' your singin'. Ye'll wauk him up, and he'll be a hantle the waur o' 't."
"I winna sing anither stave. It was lanesome stan'in' upo' the ootside here, as gin I war ane o' the foolish virgins."
"Eh! wadna that be dreidfu'?" responded Annie simply. Her words awoke an echo in Mr Cupples's conscience, but he returned no reply.
"Hoo's Alec?" he asked.
"Some better. He's growin' better, though it's langsome like."
"And do they lippen you to luik efter him, no?"
"Ay. What for no? His mither wad be worn to deith gin she sat up ilka nicht. He canna bide ouybody but her or me."
"Weel, ye're a young crater to hae sic a chairge. -I wrote to Mrs Forbes twa or three times, but I got but ae scrimpit answer. Sae as sune's I cud win awa', I cam' to speir efter him mysel'."
"Whan did ye come, Mr Cupples?"
"This nicht. Or I reckon it's last nicht noo. But or I wan ower this len'th, ye war a' i' yer beds, and I daurna disturb ye. Sae I sat doon in a summer-seat that I cam' upo', and smokit my pipe and luikit at the stars and the cluds. And I tried to sing a sang, but naething but psalms wad come, for the nicht's sae awfu' solemn, whan ye win richt intil the mids o' 't! It jist distresses me that there's naebody up to worship God a' nicht in sic a nicht's this."
"Nae doobt there's mony praisin' him that we canna see."
"Ow, ay; nae doobt. But aneath this lift, and breathin' the houpfu' air o' this divine darkness."
Annie did not quite understand him.
"I maun gang back to Alec," she said. "Ye'll come ower the morn, Mr
Cupples, and hear a' aboot him?"
"I will do that, my bairn. Hoo do they ca' ye -for I forget names dreidfu'?"
"Annie Anderson."
"Ay, ay; Annie Anderson -I hae surely heard that name afore. -Weel, I winna forget you, whether I forget yer name or no."
"But hae ye a bed?" said the thoughtful girl, to whom the comfort of every one who came near her was an instinctive anxiety.
"Ow, ay. I hae a bed at the hoose o' a sma', jabberin', bitter-barkit crater they ca' King Robert the Bruce."
Annie knew that he must be occupying her room; and was on the point of expressing a hope that he "wadna be disturbit wi' the rottans," when she saw that it would lead to new explanations and delays.
"Good night, Mr Cupples," she said, holding out her hand.
Mr Cupples took it kindly, saying:
"Are ye a niece, or a gran'-dochter o' the hoose, or a hired servan', or what are ye? -for ye're a wice-spoken lass and a bonnie."
"I'm a servan' o' the hoose," said Annie. Then after a moment's hesitation, she added, "but no a hired ane."
"Ye're worth hirin' onyhoo, hinnie (honey); and they're weel aff that has ye i' the hoose in ony capawcity. An auld man like me may say that to yer face. Sae I'll awa' to my bed, and sing the lave o' my psalm as I gang."
Mr Cupples had a proclivity to garrets. He could not be comfortable if any person was over his head. He could breathe, he said, when he got next to the stars. For the rats he cared nothing, and slept as if the garret were a cellar in heaven.
It had been a sore trial of his manhood to keep his vow after he knew that Alec was safe in the haven of a sick-bed. He knew that for him, if he were once happy again, there was little danger of a relapse; for his physical nature had not been greatly corrupted: there had not been time for that. He would rise from his sickness newborn. Hence it was the harder for Mr Cupples, in his loneliness, to do battle with his deep-rooted desires. He would never drink as he had done, but might he not have just one tumbler? -That one tumbler he did not take. And—rich reward! -after two months the well of song within him began to gurgle and heave as if its waters would break forth once more in the desert; the roseate hue returned to the sunsets; and the spring came in with a very childhood of greenness. -The obfuscations of self-indulgence will soon vanish where they have not been sealed by crime and systematic selfishness.
Another though inferior reward was, that he had money in his pocket: with this money he would go and see Alec Forbes. The amount being small, however, he would save it by walking. Hence it came that he arrived late and weary. Entering the first shop he came to, he inquired after a cheap lodging. For he said to himself that the humblest inn was beyond his means; though probably his reason for avoiding such a shelter was the same as made him ask Alec to throw the bottle out of the garret. Robert Bruce heard his question, and, regarding him keenly from under his eyebrows, debated with himself whether the applicant was respectable -that is, whether he could pay, and would bring upon the house no discredit by the harbourage. The signs of such a man as Cupples were inscrutable to Bruce; therefore his answer hung fire.
"Are ye deif, man?" said Cupples; "or are ye feared to tyne a chance by giein' a fair answer to a fair queston?"
The arrow went too near the mark not to irritate Bruce.
"Gang yer wa's," said he. "We dinna want tramps i' this toon."
"Weel, I am a tramp, nae doobt," returned Cupples; "for I hae come ilka bit o' the road upo' my ain fit; but I hae read in history o' twa or three tramps that war respectable fowk for a' that. Ye winna gie onything i' this chop, I doobt -nae even information. -Will ye sell me an unce o' pigtail?"
"Ow, ay. I'll sell't gin ye'll buy't."
"There's the bawbees," said Cupples, laying the orthodox pence on the counter. "And noo will ye tell me whaur I can get a respectable, dacent place to lie doon in? I'll want it for a week, at ony rate."
Before he had finished the question, the door behind the counter had opened, and young Bruce had entered. Mr Cupples knew him well enough by sight as a last year's bejan.
"How are you?" he said. "I know you, though I don't know your name."
"My name's Robert Bruce, Mr Cupples."
"A fine name -Robert Bruce," he replied.
The youth turned to his father, and said -
"This gentleman is the librarian of our college, father."
Bruce took his hat off his head, and set it on the counter.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I'm terrible short-sichtit in can'le-licht."
"I'm used to bein' mista'en'," answered Cupples simply, perceiving that he had got hold of a character. "Mak nae apologies, I beg ye, but answer my queston."
"Weel, sir, to tell the trowth, seein' ye're a gentleman, we hae a room oorsels. But it's a garret-room, and maybe -"
"Then I'll hae't, whatever it be, gin ye dinna want ower muckle for't."
"Weel, ye see, sir, your college is a great expense to heumble fowk like oorsels, and we hae to mak it up the best way that we can."
"Nae doot. Hoo muckle do ye want?"
"Wad ye think five shillins ower muckle?"
"'Deed wad I."
"Weel, we'll say three than -to you, sir."
"I winna gie ye mair nor half-a-croon."
"Hoot, sir! It's ower little."
"Well, I'll look further," said Mr Cupples, putting on English, and moving to the door.
"Na, sir; ye'll do nae sic thing. Do ye think I wad lat the leebrarian o' my son's college gang oot at my door this time o' nicht, to luik for a bed till himsel'? Ye s' jist hae't at yer ain price, and welcome. Ye'll hae yer tay and sugar and bitties o' cheese frae me, ye ken?"
"Of course -of course. And if you could get me some tea at once, I should be obliged to you."
"Mother," cried Bruce through the house-door, and held a momentary whispering with the partner of his throne.
"So your name's Bruce, is it?" resumed Cupples, as the other returned to the counter.
"Robert Bruce, sir, at your service."
"It's a gran' name," said Cupples with emphasis.
"'Deed is't, and I hae a richt to beir 't."
"Ye'll be a descendant, nae doot, o' the Yerl o' Carrick?" said
Cupples, guessing at his weakness.
"O' the king, sir. Fowk may think little o' me; but I come o' him that freed Scotland. Gin it hadna been for Bannockburn, sir, whaur wad Scotland hae been the day?"
"Nearhan' civileezed unner the fine influences o' the English, wi' their cultivation and their mainners, and, aboon a', their gran' Edwards and Hairries."
"I dinna richtly unnerstan' ye, sir," said Bruce. "Ye hae heard hoo the king clave the skull o' Sir Henry dee Bohunn -haena ye, sir?"
"Ow, aye. But it was a pity it wasna the ither gait. Lat me see the way to my room, for I want to wash my han's and face. They're jist barkit wi' stour (dust)."
Bruce hesitated whether to show Mr Cupples out or in. His blue blood boiled at this insult to his great progenitor. But a half-crown would cover a greater wrong than that even, and he obeyed. Cupples followed him up-stairs, murmuring to himself:
"Shades o' Wallace and Bruce! forgie me. But to see sma' craters cock their noses and their tails as gin they had inherited the michty deeds as weel as the names o' their forbears, jist scunners me, and turns my blude into the gall o' bitterness -and that's scripter for't."
After further consultation, Mr and Mrs Bruce came to the conclusion that it might be politic, for Robert's sake, to treat the librarian with consideration. Consequently Mrs Bruce invited him to go down to his tea in the room. Descending before it was quite ready, he looked about him. The only thing that attracted his attention was a handsomely bound Bible. This he took up, thinking to get some amusement from the births of the illustrious Bruces; but the only inscription he could find, besides the name of John Cowie, was the following in pencil:
"Super Davidis Psalmum tertium vicesimum, syngrapham pecuniariam centum solidos valentem, qu , me mortuo, a Annie Anderson, mihi dilecta, sit, posui."
Then came some figures, and then the date, with the initials J. C.
Hence it was that Mr Cupples thought he had heard the name of Annie
Anderson before.
"It's a gran' Bible this, gudewife," he said as Mrs Bruce entered.
"Aye is't. It belanged to oor pairis-minister."
Nothing more passed, for Mr Cupples was hungry.
After a long sleep in the morning, he called upon Mrs Forbes, and was kindly received; but it was a great disappointment to him to find that he could not see Alec. As he was in the country, however, he resolved to make the best of it, and enjoy himself for a week. For his asserted dislike to the country, though genuine at the time, was anything but natural to him. So every day he climbed to the top of one or other of the hills which inclosed the valley, and was rewarded with fresh vigour and renewed joy. He had not learned to read Wordsworth; yet not a wind blew through a broom-bush, but it blew a joy from it into his heart. He too was a prodigal returned at least into the vestibule of his Father's house. And the Father sent the servants out there to minister to him; and Nature, the housekeeper, put the robe of health upon him, and gave him new shoes of strength, and a ring, though not the Father's white stone. The delights of those spring days were endless to him whose own nature was budding with new life. Familiar with all the cottage ways, he would drop into any hoosie he came near about his dinnertime, and asking for a piece (of oat-cake) and a coguie o' milk, would make his dinner off those content, and leave a trifle behind him in acknowledgment. But he would always contrive that as the gloamin began to fall, he should be near Howglen, that he might inquire after his friend. And Mrs Forbes began to understand him better.– Before the week was over, there was not a man or woman about Howglen whom he did not know even by name; for to his surprise, even his forgetfulness was fast vanishing in the menstruum of the earth-spirit, the world's breath blown over the corn. In particular he had made the acquaintance of James Dow, with whose knowing simplicity he was greatly taken.