Part 2

One was empty, the present purse, and he understood... the dress purse, of course, a little silver only... the rest had gone that he might have something beautiful.... He knew that it must be done sooner or later, and to-day was best, for his heart could be no sorer.... Yes, here they were, the ungiven gifts. For every person, from himself to the nurse; all wrapped in soft white paper and ready in good time.... She used to arrange everything on Christmas Eve... this year he had intended to stay at Cannes,... there would just have been Bertie and his mother, now... But he must open it--an inkstand for his study in solid brass, with pens and other things complete--he noted every detail as if to estimate its value. It came back to him how she had cunningly questioned him about his needs before he left for Cannes, till he grew impatient. “Don't bother me about ink-bottles,” Yes, the very words, and others... the secret writing of memory came out in this fire of sorrow. “Why won't women understand that a man can't answer questions about trifles when he has work on hand?” He could swear to the words, and he knew how Maud looked, although he did not see.

“Don't go away; you promised that you would sit beside me when I worked--hinder me? I suppose you are bidding for a kiss; you know the sight of your face inspires me.”... That was ten years ago... he might have borne with her presence a little longer.... She never would come again... he would have no interruptions of that kind....

Her gloves, sixes--what a perfect hand it was (smoothes out the glove). His memory brings up a dinner table. Mrs. Chatterby gives her opinion on Meredith's last novel, and helps herself to salt--he sees a disgusting hand, with stumpy fingers, and, for impudence, a street arab of a thumb. A vulgar little woman through and through, and yet because she picked up scraps from the monthlies, and had the trick of catch-words, people paid her court And he had sometimes thought, but he knew better to-day... of all things in the world a glove is the surest symbol. Mended, too, very neatly... that he might have his hansoms.

It was the last thing he ever could have imagined, and yet it must be a diary--Maud's diary! Turns over the leaves, and catches that woman's name against whom he has suddenly taken a violent dislike.

“January 25. Was at Mrs. Chatterby's--how strange one does not say anything of her husband--yet he is the nicer of the two--and I think it will be better not to go again to dinner. One can always make some excuse that will not be quite untrue.

“'The dinner is in honour of Mr. Fynical, who is leaving his College and coming to live in London, to do literary work.' as Mrs. Chatterby has been explaining for weeks, 'and to give tone to the weeklies.'

“'The younger men are quite devoted to him, and we ought all to be so thankful that he is to be within reach. His touch reminds one of,'--I don't know the French writer, but she does not always give the same name. 'We hope to see a great deal of him. So delightfully cynical, you know, and hates the bourgeoisie.'

“I was terrified lest I should sit next Mr. Fynical, but Mrs. Chatterby was merciful, and gave me Janie Godfrey's father. Edward says that he is a very able man, and will be Lord Chancellor some day, but he is so quiet and modest, that one feels quite at home with him. Last summer he was yachting on the west coast of Scotland, and he described the sunset over the Skye hills; and I tried to give him a Devonshire sunrise. We both forgot where we were, and then Mrs. Chatterby asked me quite loud, so that every one looked, what I thought of 'Smudges.'

“The dinner-table seemed to wait for my answer, and I wish that the book had never come from the library, but I said that I had sent it back because it seemed so bitter and cruel, and one ought to read books which showed the noble side of life.

“'You are one of the old-fashioned women,' she replied. 'You believe in a novel for the young person,' with a smile that hurt me, and I told her that I had been brought up on Sir Walter Scott I was trying to say something about his purity and chivalry, when I caught Mr. Fynical's eye, and blushed red. If I had only been silent,--for I'm afraid every one was laughing, and Edward did not say one word to me all the way home.

“February 20. Another ordeal, but not so unfortunate as the last. The Browne-Smythes are very kind friends, but I do think they are too much concerned about having clever people at their house. One evening Mrs. Browne-Smythe said she was happy because nothing had been talked about except translations of Homer. A certain guest was so miserable on that occasion that I begged Edward to leave me at home this time, but he said it would not be Greek again. It was science, however, and when we came in Mrs. Browne-Smythe was telling a very learned-looking person that she simply lived for fossils. A young lady beside me was talking about gases to a nervous man, who grew quite red, and tried to escape behind a table. I think she was wrong in her words, and he was too polite to correct her. To my horror, he was obliged to take me in to dinner, and there never could have been two people more deserving of pity, for I was terrified of his knowledge, and he was afraid of my ignorance. We sat in perfect silence till a fatherly old man, quite like a farmer, on my left, began to talk to me so pleasantly that I described our country people, and was really sorry when the ladies had to leave. Edward says that he is one of the greatest discoverers in the world, and has all kinds of honours. We became so friendly that he has promised to take tea with me, and I think he does not despise my simplicity. How I long to be cleverer for Edward's sake, for I'm sure he must be ashamed of me among those brilliant women. I cannot blame him: I am proud of my husband.

“May 15. I am quite discouraged, and have resolved never to go to any charitable committee again. Miss Tabitha Primmer used shameful language at the Magdalene meeting to-day, and Mrs. Wood-Ruler showed me that I had broken Law 43 by giving a poor girl personal aid. It seems presumptuous on my part to criticise such able and diligent workers, but my mother never spoke about certain subjects, and it is agony for me to discuss them. When the vicar insisted on Sunday that thoughtful women were required for Christian service to-day, and that we must read up all kinds of books and know all kinds of painful things, my heart sank. It does not seem as if there was any place left for simple folk like me. Perhaps it would be better to give up going out altogether, and live for Edward and Bertie. I can always do something for them, and their love will be enough reward.

“Nov. 30 I have not slept all night, for I made a dreadful mistake about a new book that every one is reading, and Edward was so angry. He did not mean all he said, but he never called me a fool before. Perhaps he is right, and it is hard on him, who is so bright Sometimes I wish-” And then there was no writing, only a tear mark....

Afterwards he opened the letters that had come since her death, and this is what he read:

“My dear Trevor,--

“The intelligence of Mrs. Trevor's death has given me a great shock of regret, and you will allow me to express my sympathy. Many men not given to enthusiasm had told me of her face and goodness, and before I had seen your wife I knew she was a very perfect type of womanliness The few times I met her, Mrs. Trevor cast a certain spell over me--the nameless grace of the former days--and I felt myself unworthy in her presence. Once when a silly woman referred to one of the most miserable examples of decadent fiction, your wife spoke so nobly of true literature that I was moved to thank her, but I gathered from her face that this would not be acceptable. It seemed to me that the mask had fallen from a beautiful soul, and one man at least, in whom there is too little reverence, took the shoes from off his feet. Pardon me if I have exceeded, and

“Believe me,

“Yours faithfully,

“Bernard Fynical.”

The next was from the F.R.S.

“My dear Sir,--

“It is quite wrong for me, a stranger, to intrude on your grief, but I am compelled to tell you that an old fellow who only spoke to your wife once, had to wipe his spectacles over the _Times_ this morning. It came about this way. The lady I had taken in to dinner at the Browne-Smythes gabbled about science till I lost my temper, and told her it would be a good thing if women would keep to their own sphere. Your wife was on the other side, and I turned to her in despair. She delighted me by confessing utter ignorance of my subject, and then she won my heart by some of the loveliest stories of peasant life in Devonshire I ever heard, so full of insight and delicacy. If the parsons preached like that I would be in church next Sunday. She put me in mind of a sister I lost long ago--who had the same low, soft voice and honest, trusty eyes. When she found I was a lonely man, your wife had pity on me, and asked me to call on her. But I had to go to America, and only returned two days ago. I intended to wish her a Happy New Year, but it's too late. I cannot get you out of my mind, and I thought it might comfort you to know how a fossil like myself was melted by that kind heart “Believe me, my dear sir,

“Your obedient servant,

“Archibald Gilmore.”

The third was also from a man, but this time a lad in rooms whom Trevor had seen at the house.

“Dear Mr. Trevor,--

“You perhaps know that Mrs. Trevor allowed me to spend an hour with her of an evening, when I felt downhearted or had any trouble, but no one will ever know how much she did for me. When I came up to London my faith began to go, and I saw that in a short time I would be an Agnostic. This did not trouble me so much on my own account as my mother's, who is dead, and made me promise something on her death-bed. So I bought books and heard sermons on unbelief till I was quite sick of the whole business. Mrs. Trevor took me to hear your own clergyman, who did not help me one bit, for he was too clever and logical; but you remember I came home with you, and after you had gone to your study I told Mrs. Trevor my difficulties, and she did me more good than all the books. She never argued nor preached, but when I was with her one felt that religion was a reality, and that she knew more about it than any one I had met since I lost my mother. It is a shame to trouble you with my story when you are in such sorrow, and no one need tell you how noble a woman Mrs. Trevor was; but I could not help letting you know that her goodness has saved one young fellow at least from infidelity and worse.

“You will not mind my having sent a cross to put on the coffin; it was all I could do.

“Yours gratefully,

“George Benson.”

There was neither beginning nor end to the fourth letter, but it was written in a lady's hand.

“I am a clergyman's daughter, who left her father's house, and went astray. I have been in the Inferno, and have seen what I read in _Dante_ while I was innocent One day the old rectory rose up before my eyes--the roses hanging over my bedroom window; the birds flying in and out the ivy; my father on the lawn, aged and broken through my sin--and I resolved that my womanhood should no longer be dragged in the mire. My home was closed years ago, I had no friends, so I went in my desperation to a certain Institute, and told my case to a matron. She was not unkindly, but the committee were awful, without either sympathy or manners; and when an unmarried woman wished to pry into the details of my degradation--but I can't tell a man the shame they would have put upon me--my heart turned to flint, and I left the place. I would have gone back to my life and perished had it not been for one woman who followed me out, and asked me to go home with her for afternoon tea. Had she said one word about my past, I had flung myself away; but because she spoke to me as if I were still in the rectory, I could not refuse. Mrs. Trevor never once mentioned my sin, and she saved my soul. I am now a nurse in one of the hospitals, and full of peace. As long as I live I shall lay white flowers on her grave, who surely was the wisest and tenderest of women.” Trevor's fortitude was failing fast before this weight of unconscious condemnation, and he was only able to read one more--an amazing production, that had cost the writer great pains.

“Honoured Sir,--

“Bill says as it's tyking too much on the likes o' me to be addressing you on your missus' death, but it's not her husband that will despise a pore working woman oo's lost her best friend. When Bill 'ad the rumatiks, and couldn't do no work, and Byby was a-growing that thin you could see thro' 'im, Mrs. Byles says to me, 'Mrs. 'Awkes, you goes to the Society for the Horganisation of Female Toilers.' Says I, 'Wot is that?' and she declares, 'It's a set of ladies oo wants to'elp women to work, and they 'ill see you gets it' So I goes, and I saw a set of ladies sitting at a table, and they looks at me; and one with spectacles, and a vice like an 'and-saw, arsks me, 'Wot's yer name?' and ''Ow old are you?' and ''Ow many children have you?' and 'Are your 'abits temperate?' And then she says, 'If you pay a shilling we 'ill put your nyme down for work has an unskilled worker.' 'I 'avn't got a shilling, and Byby's dyin' for want of food.' 'This ain't a Poor 'ouse,' says she; 'this is a Booro.' When I wos a-going down the stairs, a lady comes after me. 'Don't cry, Mrs. 'Awkes,' for she had picked up my name. 'I've some charring for you, and we'ill go to get something for Byby.' If ever there wos a hangel in a sealskin jacket and a plain little bonnet, but the true lady hall hover, 'er name was Mrs. Trevor. Bill, he looked up from that day, and wos on his keb in a week, and little Jim is the biggest byby in the court. Mrs. Trevor never rested till I got three hoffices to clean, to say nothing of 'elping at cleanings and parties in 'ouses. She wos that kind, too, and free, when she'd come hin with noos of some hoffice. 'We're horganisin' you, Missus 'Awkes, just splendid,' with the prettiest bit smile. Bill, he used to say, ''Er 'usband's a proud man, for I never saw the like o' her for a downright lady in 'er wys'--and 'e knows, does Bill, being a kebman. When I told 'im he wos that bad that'e never put a match to 'is pipe the'ole night 'Mariar,' 'e says to me, 'you an' me 'as seen some think of her, but you bet nobody knew what a saint she wos 'xcept 'er 'usband.'”...

Trevor could read no more, for it had dawned at last upon him that Christ had lived with him for more than ten years, and his eyes had been holden.

THE MINISTER OF ST. BEDE'S

I

It was in the sixties that a southern distiller, who had grown rich through owning many public-houses and much selling of bad gin, bought Glenalder from its poverty-stricken laird, and cleared out the last of the Macdonalds from Lochaber. They arose and departed on a fine spring day, when the buds were bursting on the trees, and the thorn was white as snow, and the birds were bringing forth their young, and the heather was beginning to bloom. Early in the morning, while the grass was yet wet with dew and the sun had not come over the hill, Ian Dhu, at the head of the Glen, with his brothers and their families, their sons and their sons' wives, began the procession, which flowed as a stream of sorrow by the side of the Alder, all the day, gathering its rivulets from every forsaken home. When it reached the poor little clachan, where were the kirk and the graveyard, the emigrants halted, and leaving their goods upon the road went in to worship God for the last time in Glenalder kirk. A very humble sanctuary, with earthen floor and bare benches, and mightily despised by the kind of southron who visited the new laird's mansion, but beautiful and holy to those who had been baptised there, and married there, and sat with their heart's love there, and who, in that place, but after many years and in old age, had received the sacrament. When they were all in their places, the minister of the Glen, who would fain have gone with them, but was now too old, ascended the pulpit and spake to them from the words, “He went out, not knowing whither he went,” charging them never to forget their native country nor their fathers' faith, beseeching them to trust in God and do righteousness, calling them all kinds of tender names in the warm Gaelic speech, till they fell a-weeping, men and women together, and the place was full of lamentation. After which Alister Macdonald, who had been through the Crimean War and the Mutiny, and now was a catechist great in opening mysteries, committed them to the care of their fathers' God. They would hardly leave the kirk, and the sun was westering fast when they came to the elbow of the hill where the traveller gets his last look of the Glen. There they sang “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning,” but it was Glenalder they meant, a parcel of whose earth each family carried with them into exile; and as the pipes played “Lochaber no more” they went away for ever from the land they loved and which had cast them forth. For an hour the minister and Alister, with a handful of old people, watched their kinsfolk till they could see them no more, and then they went back, no one speaking with his neighbour, to the empty Glen.

Besides the huge staring castle, with its lodges, built by the foreigner, there are only some twenty houses now in all bonnie Glenalder. Tourists venturing from the main road come, here and there, across a little heap of stones and the remains of a garden, with some patches of bright green still visible among the heather. It is the memorial of a home where generation after generation of well-built, clean-blooded, God-fearing Highland folk were raised. From those humble cottages went up morning and evening the psalm of praise to God. From them also came hardy men to fill the ranks of the Highland regiments, who had tasted none of the city vices and did not know what fear was. Nor were they a fierce or morose people, for the Glen sounded of a summer evening with the sound of the pipes, playing reels and strathspeys, and in the winter time the minister would lend his barn for a dance, saying, like the shrewd man he was, “The more dancing the less drinking.” The very names of those desolate homesteads and the people that lived therein are now passing out of mind in Glenalder, but away in North-West Canada there is a new Glenalder, where every name has been reproduced, and the cuttings of the brier roses bloom every year in memory of the land that is “far awa.” And if any man from Lochaber, or for that matter from any part of Scotland, lights on this place, it will be hard for him to get away from the warm hearts that are there, and he must depart a better man after hearing the kindly speech and seeing the sword dance once more.

While the exiles halted on the elbow of the hill, each man, woman and child, according to his size and strength, carried a stone from the hillside and placed it on a heap that grew before their eyes, till it made a rough pyramid. This was called the Cairn of Remembrance, and as often as any one of the scanty remnant left the Glen to go south it was a custom that his friends should accompany him to this spot and bid him farewell, where the past pledged him to love and faithfulness. It was here therefore that Henry Rutherford parted from Magdalen Macdonald as he went to his last session at the Divinity Hall.

“It's four years since I came first to Glenalder to teach the school in the summer-time, Magdalen, an' little I thought then I would ever be so near the ministry or win my sweetheart in the Glen.” They were sitting on a heather bank below the cairn, and as he spoke his arm slipped round her waist He was a typical Scot, with bony frame, broad shoulders, strong face, deep-set eyes of grey, and the somewhat assertive and self-sufficient manner of his race. She was of the finest type of Highland beauty, with an almost perfect Grecian face, fair hair dashed with gold, eyes of the blue of the Highland lochs, and a queenly carriage of head and body. Deep-bosomed and unfettered by fashionable city dress, with strong hand and firm foot, she had the swinging gait and proud independence of the free hill woman.

“Had it not been for you,” he went on, “I had never persevered; it was your faith put strength in me and hope, and then... the help you gave me; I can never forget or repay you. To think that you should have slaved that I should have books and--better food.”

“Hush, I command you, for I will not be hearing another word, and if you are saying more I will be very angry. It is not good that any man should be a minister and not keep his word. And the day I gave you the purse with the two or three pieces of gold you made a promise never to speak about that day again. It is not many quarrels we have had, Henry, and some will be good quarrels, for afterward we were loving each other more than ever. But it was not good when you would lay the bits of gold on that very stone there--for I am seeing them lie in the hollow--and say hot words to me.”

“Magdalen, I put the purse itself in my breast, and I loved you more than ever for your thought of me and your sacrifice, and I wanted to kiss you, and... you ordered me to stand off, and your eyes were blazing. Lassie, you looked like a tigress; I was feared of you.”

“It was not for me to have my gifts given back, and if I was driving home the cows and milking the white milk into the pail, and churning the sweet yellow butter, all that my love should not be wanting anything, it is not for him to be so proud and mighty.”

“But I did take your kindness at last, and it was more than two or three pounds, and so it was you that sent me to Germany. You gave me my learning, and some day, when we're in our manse together, I'll show you all my books and try... to repay your love.”

“Henry, it will come over me at times in the twilight, when strange sights are seen, that we shall never be together in our house. Oh, yes, I have seen a room with books round the walls, and you will be sitting there, but I am not seeing any Magdalen. Wait a minute, for there will be another sight, and I am not understanding it. It is not this land, but where it will be I do not know; but I will be there in a beautiful room, and I will be in rich dress, but I am not seeing you.

“Do not speak.” She rose up and looked at Rutherford, holding him at arm's length, with her hand upon his shoulder. “Have you got the broken piece?” He thrust his hand into his breast, and showed the jagged half of a common penny hung round his neck by a blue ribbon.

“My half will be here”--Magdalen touched her bosom--“but maybe it will be better for me to give you it, and then... you will be free; each of us... must drink the cup that is mixed. The visions will be very clear, though I have not the second sight.”

“What is the meaning of all this talk, Magdalen?” Rutherford's face was pale, and his voice vibrated. “Are you tired of me because I am not bonnie of face, but only a plain Scot, or is it that you will not wait till I win a home for you, or have you seen another man--some glib English sportsman?”

“God forgive you, Henry Rutherford, for saying such words; is it Alister Macdonald's granddaughter that would play her lover false? Then let him drive the skean dhu into her heart.”

“Then it is me you suspect, and it is not what I have deserved at your hands, Magdalen. A Scot may seem cold and hard, but he can be 'siccar,' and if I keep not my troth with you, and deal not by you as you have by me, then may God be my judge and do unto me as I have done unto you.”

They looked into one another's eyes, and then tears put out the fire in hers, and she spoke with a wail in her voice.