- -
- 100%
- +
“Gien ever she returns to life, I greatly doobt she’ll ever bring back her senses wi’ her!” said the mother, joining them from the inner chamber.
“Hoot, ye min’ the tale o’ the lady—Lady Fanshawe, I believe they ca’d her? She cam til hersel a’ richt i’ the en’!” said Peter.
“I don’t remember the story,” said James. “Such old world tales are little to be heeded.”
“I min’ naething aboot it but jist that muckle,” said his father. “And I can think o’ naething but that bonny lassie lyin there afore me naither deid nor alive! I jist won’er, Jeames, that ye’re no as concernt, and as fillt wi’ doobt and even dreid anent it as I am mysel!”
“We’re all in the hands of the God who created life and death,” returned James, in a pious tone.
The father held his peace.
“And He’ll bring licht oot o’ the vera dark o’ the grave!” said the mother.
Her faith, or at least her hope, once set agoing, went farther than her husband’s, and she had a greater power of waiting than he. James had sorely tried both her patience and her hope, and not even now had she given him up.
“Ye’ll bide and share oor watch this ae nicht, Jeames?” said Peter. “It’s an elrische kin o’ a thing to wauk up i’ the mirk mids, wi’ a deid corp aside ye!—No ‘at even yet I gie her up for deid! but I canna help feelin some eerie like—no to say fleyt! Bide, man, and see the nicht oot wi’ ‘s, and gie yer mither and me some hert o’ grace.”
James had little inclination to add another to the party, and began to murmur something about his housekeeper. But his mother cut him short with the indignant remark—
“Hoot, what’s she?—Naething to you or ony o’ ‘s! Lat her sit up for ye, gien she likes! Lat her sit, I say, and never waste thoucht upo’ the queyn!”
James had not a word to answer. Greatly as he shrank from the ordeal, he must encounter it without show of reluctance! He dared not even propose to sit in the kitchen and smoke. With better courage than will, he consented to share their vigil. “And then,” he reflected, “if she should come to herself, there would be the advantage he had foreseen and even half desired!”
His mother went to prepare supper for them. His father rose, and saying he would have a look at the night, went toward the door; for even his strange situation could not entirely smother the anxiety of the husbandman. But James glided past him to the door, determined not to be left alone with that thing in the chamber.
But in the meantime the wind had been rising, and the coffin had been tilting and resettling on its narrower end. At last, James opening the door, the gruesome thing fell forward just as he crossed the threshold, knocked him down, and settled on the top of him. His father, close behind him, tumbled over the obstruction, divined, in the light of a lamp in the passage, what the prostrate thing was, and scrambling to his feet with the only oath he had, I fully believe, ever uttered, cried: “Damn that fule, Willie Wabster! Had he naething better to dee nor sen’ to the hoose coffins naebody wantit—and syne set them doon like rotten-traps (rat-traps) to whomel puir Jeemie!” He lifted the thing from off the minister, who rose not much hurt, but both amazed and offended at the mishap, and went to his mother in the kitchen.
“Dinna say muckle to yer mither, Jeames laad,” said his father as he went; “that is, dinna explain preceesely hoo the ill-faured thing happent. I’ll hae amen’s (amends, vengeance) upon him!” So saying, he took the offensive vehicle, awkward burden as it was, in his two arms, and carrying it to the back of the cornyard, shoved it over the low wall into the dry ditch at its foot, where he heaped dirty straw from the stable over it.
“It’ll be lang,” he vowed to himsel, “or Willie Wabster hear the last o’ this!—and langer yet or he see the glint o’ the siller he thoucht he was yirnin by ‘t!—It’s come and cairry ‘t hame himsel he sall, the muckle idiot! He may turn ‘t intil a breid-kist, or what he likes, the gomf!”
“Fain wud I screw the reid heid o’ ‘im intil that same kist, and hand him there, short o’ smorin!” he muttered as he went back to the house.—“Faith, I could ‘maist beery him ootricht!” he concluded, with a grim smile.
Ere he re-entered the house, however, he walked a little way up the hill, to cast over the vault above him a farmer’s look of inquiry as to the coming night, and then went in, shaking his head at what the clouds boded.
Marion had brought their simple supper into the parlour, and was sitting there with James, waiting for him. When they had ended their meal, and Eppie had removed the remnants, the husband and wife went into the adjoining chamber and sat down by the bedside, where James presently joined them with a book in his hand. Eppie, having rested the fire in the kitchen, came into the parlour, and sat on the edge of a chair just inside the door.
Peter had said nothing about the night, and indeed, in his wrath with the carpenter, had hardly noted how imminent was the storm; but the air had grown very sultry, and the night was black as pitch, for a solid mass of cloud had blotted out the stars: it was plain that, long before morning, a terrible storm must break. But midnight came and went, and all was very still.
Suddenly the storm was upon them, with a forked, vibrating flash of angry light that seemed to sting their eyeballs, and was replaced by a darkness that seemed to crush them like a ponderous weight. Then all at once the weight itself seemed torn and shattered into sound—into heaps of bursting, roaring, tumultuous billows. Another flash, yet another and another followed, each with its crashing uproar of celestial avalanches. At the first flash Peter had risen and gone to the larger window of the parlour, to discover, if possible, in what direction the storm was travelling. Marion, feeling as if suddenly unroofed, followed him, and James was left alone with the dead. He sat, not daring to move; but when the third flash came, it flickered and played so long about the dead face, that it seemed for minutes vividly visible, and his gaze was fixed on it, fascinated. The same moment, without a single preparatory movement, Isy was on her feet, erect on the bed.
A great cry reached the ears of the father and mother. They hurried into the chamber: James lay motionless and senseless on the floor: a man’s nerve is not necessarily proportioned to the hardness of his heart! The verity of the thing had overwhelmed him.
Isobel had fallen, and lay gasping and sighing on the bed. She knew nothing of what had happened to her; she did not yet know herself—did not know that her faithless lover lay on the floor by her bedside.
When the mother entered, she saw nothing—only heard Isy’s breathing. But when her husband came with a candle, and she saw her son on the floor, she forgot Isy; all her care was for James. She dropped on her knees beside him, raised his head, held it to her bosom, and lamented over him as if he were dead. She even felt annoyed with the poor girl’s moaning, as she struggled to get back to life. Why should she whose history was such, be the cause of mishap to her reverend and honoured son? Was she worth one of his little fingers! Let her moan and groan and sigh away there—what did it matter! she could well enough wait a bit! She would see to her presently, when her precious son was better!
Very different was the effect upon Peter when he saw Isy coming to herself. It was a miracle indeed! It could be nothing less! White as was her face, there was in it an unmistakable look of reviving life! When she opened her eyes and saw her master bending over her, she greeted him with a faint smile, closed her eyes again, and lay still. James also soon began to show signs of recovery, and his father turned to him.
With the old sullen look of his boyhood, he glanced up at his mother, still overwhelming him with caresses and tears.
“Let me up,” he said querulously, and began to wipe his face. “I feel so strange! What can have made me turn so sick all at once?”
“Isy’s come to life again!” said his mother, with modified show of pleasure.
“Oh!” he returned.
“Ye’re surely no sorry for that!” rejoined his mother, with a reaction of disappointment at his lack of sympathy, and rose as she said it.
“I’m pleased to hear it—why not?” he answered. “But she gave me a terrible start! You see, I never expected it, as you did!”
“Weel, ye are hertless, Jeernie!” exclaimed his father. “Hae ye nae spark o’ fellow-feelin wi’ yer ain mither, whan the lass comes to life ‘at she’s been fourteen days murnin for deid? But losh! she’s aff again!—deid or in a dwaum, I kenna!—Is’t possible she’s gaein to slip frae oor hand yet?”
James turned his head aside, and murmured something inaudibly.
But Isy had only fainted. After some eager ministrations on the part of Peter, she came to herself once more, and lay panting, her forehead wet as with the dew of death.
The farmer ran out to a loft in the yard, and calling the herd-boy, a clever lad, told him to rise and ride for the doctor as fast as the mare could lay feet to the road.
“Tell him,” he said, “that Isy has come to life, and he maun munt and ride like the vera mischeef, or she’ll be deid again afore he wins til her. Gien ye canna get the tae doctor, awa wi’ ye to the tither, and dinna ley him till ye see him i’ the saiddle and startit. Syne ye can ease the mere, and come hame at yer leisur; he’ll be here lang afore ye!—Tell him I’ll pey him ony fee he likes, be’t what it may, and never compleen!—Awa’ wi’ ye like the vera deevil!”
“I didna think ye kenned hoo he rade,” answered the boy pawkily, as he shot to the stable. “Weel,” he added, “ye maunna gley asklent at the mere whan she comes hame some saipy-like!”
When he returned on the mare’s back, the farmer was waiting for him with the whisky-bottle in his hand.
“Na, na!” he said, seeing the lad eye the bottle, “it’s no for you! ye want a’ the sma’ wit ye ever hed: it’s no you ‘at has to gallop; ye hae but to stick on!—Hae, Susy!”
He poured half a tumblerful into a soup-plate, and held it out to the mare, who, never snuffing at it, licked it up greedily, and immediately started of herself at a good pace.
Peter carried the bottle to the chamber, and got Isy to swallow a little, after which she began to recover again. Nor did Marion forget to administer a share to James, who was not a little in want of it.
When, within an hour, the doctor arrived full of amazed incredulity, he found Isy in a troubled sleep, and James gone to bed.
CHAPTER XXIII
The next day, Isy, although very weak, was greatly better. She was, however, too ill to get up; and Marion seemed now in her element, with two invalids, both dear to her, to look after. She hardly knew for which to be more grateful—her son, given helpless into her hands, unable to repel the love she lavished upon him; or the girl whom God had taken from the very throat of the swallowing grave. But her heart, at first bubbling over with gladness, soon grew calmer, when she came to perceive how very ill James was. And before long she began to fear she must part with her child, whose lack of love hitherto made the threatened separation the more frightful to her. She turned even from the thought of Isy’s restoration, as if that were itself an added wrong. From the occasional involuntary association of the two in her thought, she would turn away with a sort of meek loathing. To hold her James for one moment in the same thought with any girl less spotless than he, was to disgrace herself!
James was indeed not only very ill, but growing slowly worse; for he lay struggling at last in the Backbite of Conscience, who had him in her unrelaxing jaws, and was worrying him well. Whence the holy dog came we know, but how he got a hold of him to begin his saving torment, who shall understand but the maker of men and of their secret, inexorable friend! Every beginning is infinitesimal, and wrapt in the mystery of creation.
Its results only, not its modes of operation or their stages, I may venture attempting to convey. It was the wind blowing where it listed, doing everything and explaining nothing. That wind from the timeless and spaceless and formless region of God’s feeling and God’s thought, blew open the eyes of this man’s mind so that he saw, and became aware that he saw. It blew away the long-gathered vapours of his self-satisfaction and conceit; it blew wide the windows of his soul, that the sweet odour of his father’s and mother’s thoughts concerning him might enter; and when it entered, he knew it for what it was; it blew back to him his own judgments of them and their doings, and he saw those judgments side by side with his new insights into their real thoughts and feelings; it blew away the desert sands of his own moral dulness, indifference, and selfishness, that had so long hidden beneath them the watersprings of his own heart, existent by and for love and its gladness; it cleared all his conscious being, made him understand that he had never hitherto loved his mother or his father, or any neighbour; that he had never loved God one genuine atom, never loved the Lord Christ, his Master, or cared in the least that he had died for him; had never at any moment loved Isy—least of all when to himself he pleaded in his own excuse that he had loved her. That blowing wind, which he could not see, neither knew whence it came, and yet less whither it was going, began to blow together his soul and those of his parents; the love in his father and in his mother drew him; the memories of his childhood drew him; for the heart of God himself was drawing him, as it had been from the first, only now first he began to feel its drawing; and as he yielded to that drawing and went nearer, God drew ever more and more strongly; until at last—I know not, I say, how God did it, or whereby he made the soul of James Blatherwick different from what it had been—but at last it grew capable of loving, and did love: first, he yielded to love because he could not help it; then he willed to love because he could love; then, become conscious of the power, he loved the more, and so went on to love more and more. And thus did James become what he had to become—or perish.
But for this liberty, he had to pass through wild regions of torment and horror; he had to become all but mad, and know it; his body, and his soul as well, had to be parched with fever, thirst, and fear; he had to sleep and dream lovely dreams of coolness and peace and courage; then wake and know that all his life he had been dead, and now first was alive; that love, new-born, was driving out the gibbering phantoms; that now indeed it was good to be, and know others alive about him; that now life was possible, because life was to love, and love was to live. What love was, or how it was, he could not tell; he knew only that it was the will and the joy of the Father and the Son.
Long ere he arrived at this, however, the falsehood and utter meanness of his behaviour to Isy had become plain to him, bringing with it such an overpowering self-contempt and self-loathing, that he was tempted even to self-destruction to escape the knowledge that he was himself the very man who had been such, and had done such things. “To know my deed, ‘twere best not know myself!” he might have said with Macbeth. But he must live on, for how otherwise could he make any atonement? And with the thought of reparation, and possible forgiveness and reconcilement, his old love for Isy rushed in like a flood, grown infinitely nobler, and was uplifted at last into a genuine self-abandoning devotion. But until this final change arrived, his occasional paroxysms of remorse touched almost on madness, and for some time it seemed doubtful whether his mind must not retain a permanent tinge of insanity. He conceived a huge disgust of his office and all its requirements; and sometimes bitterly blamed his parents for not interfering with his choice of a profession that was certain to be his ruin.
One day, having had no delirium for some hours, he suddenly called out as they stood by his bed—
“Oh, mother! oh, father! why did you tempt me to such hypocrisy? Why did you not bring me up to walk at the plough-tail? Then I should never have had to encounter the damnable snares of the pulpit! It was that which ruined me—the notion that I must take the minister for my pattern, and live up to my idea of him, before even I had begun to cherish anything real in me! It was the road royal to hypocrisy! Without that rootless, worthless, devilish fancy, I might have been no worse than other people! Now I am lost! Now I shall never get back to bare honesty, not to say innocence! They are both gone for ever!”
The poor mother could only imagine it his humility that made him accuse himself of hypocrisy, and that because he had not fulfilled to the uttermost the smallest duty of his great office.
“Jamie, dear,” she cried, laying her cheek to his, “ye maun cast yer care upo’ Him that careth for ye! He kens ye hae dene yer best—or if no yer vera best—for wha daur say that?—ye hae at least dene what ye could!”
“Na, na!” he answered, resuming the speech of his boyhood—a far better sign of him than his mother understood, “I ken ower muckle, and that muckle ower weel, to lay sic a flattering unction to my sowl! It’s jist as black as the fell mirk! ‘Ah, limed soul, that, struggling to be free, art more engaged!’”
“Hoots, ye’re dreamin, laddie! Ye never was engaged to onybody—at least that ever I h’ard tell o’! But, ony gait, fash na ye aboot that! Gien it be onything o’ sic a natur that’s troublin ye, yer father and me we s’ get ye clear o’ ‘t!”
“Ay, there ye’re at it again! It was you ‘at laid the bird-lime! Ye aye tuik pairt, mither, wi’ the muckle deil that wad na rist till he had my sowl in his deepest pit!”
“The Lord kens his ain: he’ll see that they come throuw unscaumit!”
“The Lord disna mak ony hypocreet o’ purpose doobtless; but gien a man sin efter he has ance come to the knowledge o’ the trowth, there remaineth for him—ye ken the lave o’ ‘t as weel as I dee mysel, mother! My only houp lies in a doobt—a doobt, that is, whether I had ever come til a knowledge o’ the trowth—or hae yet!—Maybe no!”
“Laddie, ye’re no i’ yer richt min’. It’s fearsome to hearken til ye!”
“It’ll be waur to hear me roarin wi’ the rich man i’ the lowes o’ hell!”
“Peter! Peter!” cried Marion, driven almost to distraction, “here’s yer ain son, puir fallow, blasphemin like ane o’ the condemned! He jist gars me creep!”
Receiving no answer, for her husband was nowhere near at the moment, she called aloud in her desperation—
“Isy! Isy! come and see gien ye can dee onything to quaiet this ill bairn.”
Isy heard, and sprang from her bed.
“Comin, mistress!” she answered; “comin this moment.”
They had not met since her resurrection, as Peter always called it.
“Isy! Isy!” cried James, the moment he heard her approaching, “come and hand the deil aff o’ me!”
He had risen to his elbow, and was looking eagerly toward the door.
She entered. James threw wide his arms, and with glowing eyes clasped her to his bosom. She made no resistance: his mother would lay it all to the fever! He broke into wild words of love, repentance, and devotion.
“Never heed him a hair, mem; he’s clean aff o’ his heid!” she said in a low voice, making no attempt to free herself from his embrace, but treating him like a delirious child. “There maun be something aboot me, mem, that quaiets him a bit! It’s the brain, ye ken, mem! it’s the het brain! We maunna contre him! he maun hae his ain w’y for a wee!”
But such was James’s behaviour to Isy that it was impossible for the mother not to perceive that, incredible as it might seem, this must be far from the first time they had met; and presently she fell to examining her memory whether she herself might not have seen Isy before ever she came to Stonecross; but she could find no answer to her inquiry, press the question as she might. By and by, her husband came in to have his dinner, and finding herself compelled, much against her will, to leave the two together, she sent up Eppie to take Isy’s place, with the message that she was to go down at once. Isy obeyed, and went to the kitchen; but, perturbed and trembling, dropped on the first chair she came to. The farmer, already seated at the table, looked up, and anxiously regarding her, said—
“Bairn, ye’re no fit to be aboot! Ye maun caw canny, or ye’ll be ower the burn yet or ever ye’re safe upo’ this side o’ ‘t! Preserve’s a’! ir we to lowse ye twise in ae month?”
“Jist answer me ae queston, Isy, and I’ll speir nae mair,” said Marion.
“Na, na, never a queston!” interposed Peter;—“no ane afore even the shaidow o’ deith has left the hoose!—Draw ye up to the table, my bonny bairn: this isna a time for ceremony, and there’s sma’ room for that ony day!”
Finding, however, that she sat motionless, and looked far more death-like than while in her trance, he got up, and insisted on her swallowing a little whisky; when she revived, and glad to put herself under his nearer protection, took the chair he had placed for her beside him, and made a futile attempt at eating. “It’s sma’ won’er the puir thing hasna muckle eppiteet,” remarked Mrs. Blatherwick, “considerin the w’y yon ravin laddie up the stair has been cairryin on til her!”
“What! Hoo’s that?” questioned her husband with a start.
“But ye’re no to mak onything o’ that, Isy!” added her mistress.
“Never a particle, mem!” returned Isy. “I ken weel it stan’s for naething but the heat o’ the burnin brain! I’m richt glaid though, that the sicht o’ me did seem to comfort him a wee!”
“Weel, I’m no sae sure!” answered Marion. “But we’ll say nae mair anent that the noo! The guidman says no; and his word’s law i’ this hoose.”
Isy resumed her pretence of breakfast. Presently Eppie came down, and going to her master, said—
“Here’s An’ra, sir, come to speir efter the yoong minister and Isy: am I to gar him come in?”
“Ay, and gie him his brakfast,” shouted the farmer.
The old woman set a chair for her son by the door, and proceeded to attend to him. James was left alone.
Silence again fell, and the appearance of eating was resumed, Peter being the only one that made a reality of it. Marion was occupied with many thinkings, specially a growing doubt and soreness about Isy. The hussy had a secret! She had known something all the time, and had been taking advantage of her unsuspiciousness! It would be a fine thing for her, indeed, to get hold of the minister! but she would see him dead first! It was too bad of the Robertsons, whom she had known so long and trusted so much! They knew what they were doing when they passed their trash upon her! She began to distrust ministers! What right had they to pluck brands from the burning at the expense o’ dacent fowk! It was to do evil that good might come! She would say that to their faces! Thus she sat thinking and glooming.
A cry of misery came from the room above. Isy started to her feet. But Marion was up before her.
“Sit doon this minute,” she commanded.
Isy hesitated.
“Sit doon this moment, I tell ye!” repeated Marion imperiously. “Ye hae no business there! I’m gaein til ‘im mysel!” And with the word she left the room.
Peter laid down his spoon, then half rose, staring bewildered, and followed his wife from the room.
“Oh my baby! my baby!” cried Isy, finding herself alone. “If only I had you to take my part! It was God gave you to me, or how could I love you so? And the mistress winna believe that even I had a bairnie! Noo she’ll be sayin I killt my bonny wee man! And yet, even for his sake, I never ance wisht ye hadna been born! And noo, whan the father o’ ‘im’s ill, and cryin oot for me, they winna lat me near ‘im!”
The last words left her lips in a wailing shriek.
Then first she saw that her master had reentered. Wiping her eyes hurriedly, she turned to him with a pitiful, apologetic smile.
“Dinna be sair vext wi’ me, sir: I canna help bein glaid that I had him, and to tyne him has gien me an unco sair hert!”
She stopped, terrified: how much had he heard? she could not tell what she might not have said! But the farmer had resumed his breakfast, and went on eating as if she had not spoken. He had heard nearly all she said, and now sat brooding on her words.