Chapter 33

The countryside, the village--the Jardine Arms--Mrs. Macmurdo in her shop to all who entered--talked of the laird's homecoming. "He's a strange sort!"

"Some do say he's been to America and found a gold-mine."

"Na! He's just been journeying around in himself."

"I am na spekalative. He's contentit, and sae am I. It's a mair natural warld than ye think."

"Three year syne when he went away, he lookit like ane o' thae figures o' tragedy--"

"Aweel, then, he's swallowed himself and digested it."

"I ca' it fair miracle! The Lord touched him in the night."

"Do ye haud that he'll gang to kirk the morn?"

"I dinna precisely ken. He micht, and he micht not."

He went, entering with Mrs. Grizel, Alice, and Strickland, sitting in the House pew. How many kirks he thought of, sitting there--what cathedrals, chapels; what rude, earnest places; what temples, mosques, caves, ancient groves; what fanes; what worshiped gods! One, one! Temple and image, worshiped and worshiper. Self helping self. "O my Self, daily and deeply help myself!"

The little white stone building--the earnest, strenuous, narrow man in the pulpit, the Scots congregation--old, old, familiar, with an inner odor not unpungent, not unliked! Life Everlasting--Everlasting Life....

"_That ye may have life and have it more abundantly._"

White Farm sat in the White Farm place. Jarvis Barrow was there. But he did not sit erect as of yore; he leaned upon his staff. Jenny was missed. Lame now, she stayed at home and watched the passing, and talked to herself or talked to others. Gilian sat beside the old man. Behind were Menie and Merran, Thomas and Willy. Glenfernie's eyes dwelt quietly upon Jarvis and his granddaughter. When he willed he could see Elspeth beside Gilian.

The prayers, the sermon, the hymns.... All through the world-body the straining toward the larger thing, the enveloping Person! As he sat there he felt blood-warmth, touch, with every foot that sought hold, with every hand that reached. He saw the backward-falling, and he saw that they did not fall forever, that they caught and held and climbed again. He saw that because he had done that, time and time again done that.

Mr. M'Nab preached a courageous, if harsh, sermon. The old words of commination! They were not empty--but in among them, fine as ether, now ran a gloss.... The sermon ended, the final psalm was sung.

"When Zion's bondage God turned back, As men that dreamed were we. Then filled with laughter was our mouth. Our tongue with melody--"

But the Scots congregation went out, to the eye sober, stern, and staid. Glenfernie spoke to Jarvis Barrow. He meant to do no more than give a word of greeting. But the old man put forth an emaciated hand and held him.

"Is it the auld laird? My eyes are na gude.--Eh, laird, I remember the sermons of your grandfather, Gawin Elliot! Aye, aye! he was a lion against sinners! I hae seen them cringe!... It is the auld laird, Gilian?"

"No, Grandfather. You remember that the old laird was William. This is Mr. Alexander."

"He that was always aff somewhere alane?" White Farm drew his mind together. "I see now! You're right. I remember."

"I am coming to White Farm to-morrow, Mr. Barrow."

"Come then.... Is Grierson slain?"

"He's away in past time," said Gilian. "Grandfather, here's Willy to help you.--Don't say anything more to him now, Glenfernie."

The next day he rode to White Farm. Jenny, through the window, saw him coming, but Jarvis Barrow, old bodily habits changing, lay sleeping on his own bed. Nor was Gilian at hand. The laird sat and talked with Jenny in the clean, spare living-room. All the story of her crippling was to be told, and a packed chest of country happenings gone over. Jenny had a happy, voluble half-hour. At last, the immediate bag exhausted, she began to cast her mind in a wider circle. Her words came at a slower pace, at last halted. She sat in silence, an apple red in her cheeks. She eyed askance the man over against her, and at last burst forth:

"Gilian said I should na speir--but, eh, Glenfernie, I wad gie mair than a bawbee to ken what you did to him!"

"Nothing."

"Naething?"

"Nothing that you would call anything."

Jenny sat with open mouth. "They said you'd changed, even to look at--and sae you have!--_Naething!_"

Jarvis Barrow entered the room, and with him came Gilian. The old man failed, failed. Now he knew Glenfernie and spoke to him of to-day and of yesterday--and now he addressed him as though he were his father, the old laird, or even his grandfather. And after a few minutes he said that he would go out to the fir-tree. Alexander helped him there. Gilian took the Bible and placed it beside him.

"Open at eleventh Isaiah," he said. "'_And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots--_'"

Gilian opened the book. "You read," and she sat down beside him.

"I wish to talk to you," said Alexander to her. "When--?"

"I am going to town to-morrow afternoon. I'll walk back over the moor."

When he came upon the moor next day it was bathed by a sun half-way down the western quarter. The colors of it were lit, the vast slopes had alike tenderness and majesty. He moved over the moor; then he sat down by a furze-bush and waited. Gilian came at last, sat down near him in the dry, sweet growth. She put her arms over her knees; she held her head back and drank the ineffable rich compassion of the sky. She spoke at last.

"Oh, laird, life's a marvel!"

"I feel the soul now," he said, "of marigolds and pansies. That is the difference to me."

"What shall you do? Stay here and grow--or travel again and grow?"

"I do not yet know.... It depends."

"It depends on Ian, does it not?"

"Yes.... Now you speak as Gilian and now you speak as Elspeth."

"That is the marvel of the world.... That Person whom we call Being has also a long name.--My name, her name, your name, his name, its name, all names! Side by side, one over another, one through another.... Who comes out but just that Person?"

They sat and watched the orb that itself, with its members the planets, went a great journey. Gilian began to talk about Elspeth. She talked with quietness, with depth, insight, and love, sitting there on the golden moor. Elspeth--childhood and girlhood and womanhood. The sister of Elspeth spoke simply, but the sifted words came from a poet's granary. She made pictures, she made melodies for Alexander. Glints of vision, fugitive strains of music, echoes of a quaint and subtle mirth, something elemental, faylike--that was Elspeth. And lightning in the south in summer, just shown, swiftly withdrawn--power and passion--sudden similitudes with great love-women of old story--that also was Elspeth. And a crying and calling for the Star that gathers all stars--that likewise was Elspeth. Such and such did Elspeth show herself to Gilian. And that half-year that they knew about of grief and madness--it was not scanted nor its misery denied! It, too, was, or had been, of Elspeth. Deep through ages, again and again, something like that might have worked forth. But it was not all nor most of that nature--had not been and would not be--would not be--would not be. The sister of Elspeth spoke with pure, convinced passion as to that. Who denied the dark? There were the dark and the light, and the million million tones of each! And there was the eternal space where differences trembled into harmony.

With the sunset they moved over the great, clean slope to where it ran down to fields and trees. Before them was White Farm, below them the glistening stream, coral and gold between and around the stepping-stones. They parted here, Gilian going on to the house, the laird turning again over the moor.

He passed the village; he came by the white kirk and the yew-trees and the kirkyard. All were lifted upon the hilltop, all wore the color of sunset and the color of dawn. The laird of Glenfernie moved beside the kirkyard wall. He seemed to hold in his hand marigolds, pinks, and pansies. He saw a green mound, and he seemed to put the flowers there, out of old custom and tenderness. But no longer did he feel that Elspeth was beneath the mound. A wide tapering cloud, golden-feathered, like a wing of glory, stretched half across the sky. He looked at it; he looked at that in which it rested. His lips moved, he spoke aloud.

"_O Death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory?_"