Chapter 9

Fearsome to behold was the awestruck face which Donald turned to mine, and full of questioning dread, I doubt not, were the eyes that met his own. Was this the doing of the Lord, or was it but the handiwork of death, that wizard oculist, so often lending mystic vision to pilgrims setting under darkness out to sea?

Leaving death and Elsie to their unequal conflict, we started with one impulse to the window; but Donald was there before me, his eyes shaded by his hands, burning through the dark a pathway to the gate.

"God be mercifu'," he muttered, and then turned swiftly towards the stairs, for a hand was fumbling at the latch. I waited trembling, and I heard no word; but the aroma of a soul's second spring stole sweet and unafraid into the chamber of death.

* * * * *

I met them at the door as Donald said, "Yir mither's deein'," and there broke from the rugged man beside him a low moaning sound, like to many waters when some opposing thing hath at length been overswept. It was quickly checked, and the silence of love and anguish took its place.

I drew Donald gently back and closed the door upon them twain, the waiting mother and the wandering son, for there was never bridal hour like to this.

"My mither, oh, my mither!" I heard him say; and Elsie spoke no word, but the long ache was ended and the great wound was well.

'Twas but a moment again when a trembling voice called, "Faither, she's wantin' ye."

We entered the love-lit room, and Elsie beckoned him swiftly to her side.

"I maun be gaun sune," she whispered, and then followed some words too low for my ears to catch.

Donald turned to me: "She wants to hae the sacrament dispensit till us a'," and his face was full of dubious entreaty, for the kirk session of St. Cuthbert's was sternly set against private administration.

The session and its rules were in that moment to me but as the dust. Beyond their poor custody was a holy hour such as this. The little table was quickly spread, the snow-white bread and the wine pressed by a mother's priestly hands. I was about to proceed with the holy ordinance when Elsie stopped me.

"Bide a meenit. Donal', get ye the token, the ane wee Elsie loved. My hairt tells me she's no' far awa the noo. She'll e'en show forth the Lord's deith alang wi' us. The Maister o' the feast is here, and why wad He no' bring oor Elsie wi' Him? Wha kens but I'll gang hame wi' them baith?"

Her husband, obedient to the seer's voice, passed quickly to an adjoining room, and in an instant reappeared, bearing the well-worn token in his hands, the same his dying child had fondly held; and I heard again the low refrain which grief had taught him years ago: "Christ an' oor Elsie--an' her mither." This last was new, learned in sorrow's latest hour.

He handed it to his wife, who took it, turning her wan face to mine.

"There's only ane, but it'll dae us a'--let Robin haud it. Tak' it, laddie; it's warm frae yir sister's haun'."

The wanderer's reverent hand received it, and holy memories, long banished, flowed back into the heart that had not been their home since the golden days of boyhood. Of his mother and his sister were they all, and they laved that heart till it was almost clean, for they were in disguise but memories of God, foreshadowing the Greater Incarnation.

"Noo we're ready, an' we're a' here. Raise the psalm, faither, the sacrament ane," she said faintly--"tak' St. Paul's," and Donald's quavering voice essayed--

"I'll of salvation take the cup, On God's name will I call; I'll pay my vows now to the Lord Before His people all.

* * * * *

Dear in God's sight is His saints' death, Thy servant, Lord"--

but the faltering voice refused.

I broke the bread and poured the wine, handing the sacred emblems first to the dying one, so soon to take them new in the kingdom of God. Then Donald partook, and buried his face in his hands. To Robin next I proffered the holy symbols, but he drew back, stretching forth his hands towards the bed.

"I daurna--I've wandered ower far," he said. "I hear the russlin' o' the husks."

"Dinna fear, Robin," whispered his mother's lips. "We're a' but bairns comin' back to oor Faither's hoose; God loves ye mair than either yir faither or me,--I'm near the kingdom, an' I ken."

"My son, my laddie,"--it was his father's broken voice,--"let us tak' the feast thegither. I'm a puir prodigal masel'--but the door is open wide, an' we'll baith come hame to God."

"I'll tak' it frae ma mither's hands," said Robin.

I handed the elements to her, ordained from all eternity to minister to the son she bore; with trembling hands she dispensed them to him, high priestess unto God, her dying eyes distilling the very love which shed its fragrance when the all but dying Saviour first brake the holy bread.

When we were through, Elsie's voice was heard saying to herself "Unto Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood," which was followed by a long silence.

"Wull ye no' pronounce the benediction?" Donald said at last, for he was by nature an ecclesiastic.

"Did you not hear it?" I replied.

The silence deepened, the breathing grew heavier, and we two stood together looking down upon her face. Robin's was by his mother's. Suddenly her eyes opened wide, fastening themselves upon her son.

"I'll sune win hame," she murmured gladly, "an' I want ye to say yir bit prayer to me, Robin, afore I gang, the way ye did when ye were a bairnie. Kneel doon, Robin, an' say it to me, an' we'll baith say it to God, for I'm weary tae. 'Noo I lay me,' ye ken."

The strong man bowed beside his mother's bed, and the great anthem began, the sobbing bass of the broken heart mingling with the feeble dying voice--

"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray Thee Lord my soul to keep; If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee Lord my soul to take."

Suddenly she pointed with uplifted hand: "Oh, faither, I see oor Elsie's face--an' the token's in her haun', an' it's a' bricht wi' gowden licht. She's biddin' us a' hame--me, an' faither, an' Robin----" and she passed into the homeland bearing the prodigal's name with her up to God.

I gently closed her eyes. Donald stood long beside the bed; then, taking his son into his arms, he said--

"Yir mither's bye the gate."

XIX

_A MAIDEN'S LOVE_

What self-contradicting things we are! The very joys we crave bring sorrow when they come; for they crowd out some only lesser joy, which, rejected, turns to bitterness and takes its long revenge. It is one of the blessed laws of life that no heart, however hospitable, can entertain more than one sorrow at one time, how many so ever be waiting at the door. Each must wait its turn.

But alas! Joy has its corresponding law; every heart's pleasure is an alternative, and if much we would enjoy, much also we must renounce. Joy usually comes as twins, and the great perplexity is to discern which the first-born is, that our homage may not return unto us void.

Of many of our deepest longings may it not be said that their fulfillment would be our keenest disappointment? For instance, the wife of our family physician is forever lamenting that no spouse in all New Jedboro sees as little of her husband as does she, forever longing that he might be released to the enjoyment of his own fireside. Yet should a fickle or convalescent public suddenly so release him, our doctor's wife would be of all women most miserable.

Even as I write, I am disturbed by a lad of twenty who starts to-day on his long journey to Athabasca and the waiting prairies of our great Canadian West.

Full of pathetic joy is his youthful face; but his mother is bowed beside the bed whereon she gave him birth--her cup, she thinks, would be full to overflowing if her first-born son were suddenly to dispack his box and take up the old nestling life again. The sun would have turned back to its undimmed meridian, she weens; and yet she knows full well that this very longing, were it gratified, would poison her overflowing cup and tarnish her mother's pride. If she were asked to choose between these two, womanlike, she would elect to have them both--but God forbids.

The youth's father says: "Let the lad go forth"--and God is a Father, though He takes counsel of a mother-heart.

All this reflective vein flows from this poor heart of mine, the truth whereof that heart hath sorrowfully proved.

For my daughter Margaret holds within it a place of solitary tenderness, more exclusively her own as the years go by. And I too was forced to the great alternative, the same which hath wrung uncounted parents' hearts before I saw the light, the same as will rend thousands more when that poor light has filtered through darkness into Day.

What father is there who can contemplate without dismay the prospect of his only daughter surrendered to another's care, though that other press the cruel claim of a mate's more passionate love? Where is the father that does not long to shelter his child's sweet innocence forever within the pavilion of his heart's loving tenderness? And yet, where is the father who would be free from torture, were he assured that his soul's yearning would be satisfied, and that no high claim of unrelated love would ever rival or dispute his own?

It was my own fault that Margaret's attachment to Angus Strachan came to me as a bolt from the blue. I had never dreamed of it--I was so sure of everybody loving Margaret that I never thought of anybody loving her. Of course it was easily seen that their friendship was mutually cherished; but friendship, although a mother's hope, is a father's reassurance. Margaret's mother had more than once spoken of their friendship in that portentous tone which all women hope to assume before they die; and her words exuded the far-off fragrance of orange blossoms. She began with the assurance that the friendship between Angus and our Margaret had no particular meaning--to which I agreed. A little later on she ventured the remark that she did not think Angus cared for Margaret except as a friend--to which also I cheerfully agreed. Later still, she resorted to the interrogative, and asked me if I thought Margaret would ever marry, to which I answered: "I hope so, but she shall not with my consent."

"I was married when I was Margaret's age," added my wife. (What woman is there who does not love to say the same?) "Margaret will soon be twenty."

"Yes, my dear, but few women have the chance that came to you and no man ever had provocation like to mine." This was followed by a passage at arms, during which, of course, the fair debater's lips were sealed.

By degrees my wife's attack upon the subject grew bolder and more frontal.

"Do you think Margaret cares anything for Angus?" she asked, the hour being that post-retiring one sacred in every age to conjugal conference.

"I don't think so--certainly not; why should she? We have a triangular family altogether--two to each of us, and why should she want any more? She has you and me, just as I have you and her, and you have her and me."

"But that is foolish; you don't understand."

"I don't want to understand," I answered drowsily. "Margaret's only a child--and I want to go to sleep; if I don't sleep over my sermon to-night, the people will to-morrow." For it was Saturday night.

But "the child" was not asleep. The love affairs of other hearts are by others easily borne, even though those others be the next nearest and dearest of all. But how different with the maiden's heart that loves, and tremblingly hopes that it loves not in vain! Then doth the pillow burn with holy passion, and considerate sleep, like an indulgent nurse, turns her steps aside, fearing to break in upon the soul's solemn revelry. Even when she ventures nigh, gently withdrawing the still unwearied heart from its virgin joy, do the half open lips still sip from the new found cisterns of sweet and tender bliss.

O holy love! Who shall separate the joy thou bringest from the heart that opens wide to welcome it, even as the flower bares its bosom to the sun?

Darkness and tears and sorrow may follow fast; fears and misgivings and dread discoveries may come close upon thy train; broken-heartedness and bleak perpetual maidenhood may be thine only relics; or, flowering with the years, the thorns of grief and poverty and widowhood may grow where youthful fancy looked for radiant flowers; the heart which echoed with thy bridal song may yet peal forth the Rachel cry--but thou belongest to the heart forever, and none of these can dispossess the soul of its unforgotten transport. Nor fire, nor flood, nor fraud can prevail against thee! Thy treasures moth and rust doth not corrupt nor thieves break through and steal!

As a burning building lends its heat to all beside it, so was my own soul kindled, half with rapture and half with anger, by the story of Margaret's passion. Father's and daughter's hearts were never pressed closer to each other than were mine and my only child's.

It was the succeeding Sunday night that Margaret, in her father's arms, breathed out the tender tale; I was enjoying my evening smoke (a post-sermonic anodyne), but long before Margaret had finished, my cigar was in ashes and my heart in flame.

"Father," she began, her face hidden on my shoulder, "I am either very happy or very wretched, and I cannot decide which till I know which you will be."

"The old problem, daughter, is it not?" I answered. "Still longing to enter a hospital? And you want to wheedle your old father into giving you up?" for Margaret, like every other modern girl, had been craving entrance to that noble calling. The high-born and the love-lorn, those weary of life, or of love, or both, find a refuge there.

"No, father, I was not thinking of that at all. I don't want to be a nurse any more."

"What is it then? You have never had any secrets from your father and you will not have any now, will you, dear one?"

"Oh, father, I will tell you all I can--but I cannot tell you all."

I started in my chair, for the child note was absent from her words, and the passion of womanhood was in its stead. Awesome to a father's heart is that moment wherein a daughter's voice unconsciously asserts the suffrage of her soul.

"Go on, my daughter--tell me what you may," I said, for I knew now that the realm was one wherein parental authority was of no avail.

Only silence followed; her lips spoke no word, but the heaving bosom had a rhetoric all its own and told me that a new life, begotten not of mine, was throbbing there. An alien life it seemed to me, a soul's expansion beyond the province of my own, an infinitude which denied the sway of even a father's love. At length she spoke:

"Oh, father, I will tell you all--that is, all I can. But I am so lonely. You cannot follow me, father. I have gone away in--with another--in where you cannot go."

"What mean you, Margaret? In where? Where can I not come?" I asked, perplexed.

"Father, let me tell you. I am speaking in a figure, I know--but it is the only way--and you will understand. Love is a far country, and prodigals take their journey there--but they seek it two by two. Oh, father, another one and I went off together to that far, far land and those who go leave father and mother far behind. But there is no hunger and no famine there."

Rich the endowment love bestows! While we had all thought Margaret anything but dull, yet this new speech of metaphor and music fell upon my ears as a great surprise. That live coal from off God's altar had touched her lips when first another's burning lips of love anointed them with flame. When this new sun arises, the humblest of God's meadow creatures know that the soul has wings and spread them in that holy light.

Closer to my breast I pressed the heart whose tumult, as it struggled with its muffled witnesses, started the same passionate riot in my own.

"There are many voices in your heart, daughter mine; let them speak every one and tell me all their story. Where is it that your father cannot come?"

"Father," she answered, with sweet calmness but with averted face, "I never loved you more than now. But love's joy is in its loneliness, its sweet bridal loneliness. It was a long weary way that another one and I--you know his name, and I cannot speak it yet--walked together, but not alone together; for others walked besides us--and friendship is a cruel thing. But oh, father dear, one day--no, it was in the gloaming, we saw an avenue far beyond; and we both knew it was for us and for us alone. I saw it first, but I did not let Angus know. But he saw it in a moment and he started quickly on. Then my feet fell back, though my heart pressed on with his. But Angus would not let me stop. He hurried me on; and it was sweet to be overborne, for love makes a man so strong and a woman so weak.

"When we came close up to where you enter in, I saw that the way within was sweet, and shadowy, so shadowy, but I saw that it was long, so long. And I turned away, though my heart never turned. But Angus's eyes never moved from the avenue, and he whispered that it was meant for us two--just for us two--and for none on earth beside; he said no one could go in alone, because it would vanish if they did--and he held me close--and we went in together--and we shall come out no more forever. That is where you cannot come, father--nor mother, nor dearest friend can. You could not if you would, for it is God who keeps the gate."

Her trembling voice was still, but throbbing heart and swelling bosom still poured forth their passionate utterance.

Soon her lips opened again, yielding before the inner tide.

"And father," her hot cheek pressed to mine foretold the ardent story, "it was at evening, as I said, and Angus and I had wandered far--farther than we thought. We were resting on a grassy knoll. Angus had been speaking of his mother, and he said that the beauty of nature always made his heart ache. Surely, father, there is nothing so lonesome as beauty when the heart's lonesome! Angus and I were still a long time--till it was growing dusk; and then at last he said, 'How lonely all this is if no one loves you!' And I started at his tone, and when my eyes met his I went down before them, for they caressed me so. Father dear, I need not tell you all. I could not if I would--no girl could. I know, I remember, oh, I remember what he said, and no one else knows but me, and my soul trusted him and he took me into the sheltering place where nobody but God could see my soul's surrender."

"My daughter, my little daughter," was all I said.

"Wait, father," her face now was hidden deep and she was whispering into my very heart, "there is another thing I want to tell you--no, two things, for they were both together.

"Father, he kissed me--on the lips--and I did not believe it; for just a moment before we had been listening to the crickets and looking at the sun. But he kissed me on the lips and my whole soul surged hot, and my eyes were closed--for I felt him coming and I could not speak or move.

"And I don't know why, but I thought of the sacrament and the holy wine, and everything was holy--not like music, but like a bell, a great cathedral bell with its unstained voice. And father (I shall feel purer when I tell you this), father, that very moment I felt a strange new life in my breast and the old girlish life was gone--and there came before my closed eyes a vision of another just like Angus, white and soft and helpless--and I heard its cry--and my heart melted in me with the great compassion. And I knew that what I called love was really life, just life. And I felt no shame at all, but a great pride that it was all so holy--for it is holy, father, and no one prompted it but God. Father, do you love me?"

I bent to kiss the glowing lips, but I remembered, and kissed her brow instead, beautiful and pure before my misty eyes. She drew herself gently from my arms and in a moment the sweet presence had departed. But the fragrance of love and innocence was left behind and my faltering answer came at last, though she heard it not:

"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."

XX

_A FATHER'S CRUCIFIXION_

It is from joy alone that real sorrow can be brewed. Were joy to perish from the earth human lips would soon forget the bitter taste of anguish. The only intolerable clouds are those which follow swift upon some rosy morn, frowning its every sunbeam into darkness, pursuing its fugitive smiles as the hound pursues the deer. The soul's great sickness is in joy's relapse.

Into the tide of our daughter's virgin gladness her mother and I were soon gladly swept. Love and joy are incendiary things and we soon succumbed to the sweet contagion. Apart altogether from our daughter's choice, he might well have been our own; for Angus Strachan was strong of body and vigorous of mind, and pure of soul. He had made swift strides in his chosen calling, and was now a partner in one of the manufacturing firms which were New Jedboro's pride. At the door of industry he had knocked with patient hand, and wealth had answered to that knock herself. He was a man of influence, ever increasing, in New Jedboro. In St. Cuthbert's, he was held in high esteem by all, and the next election, we knew, would call him to the elder's honoured place. Prepossessing in appearance, manly in bearing, musical in speech, fragrant in character, Angus might well wake the echoes of even our Margaret's noble heart.

Wherefore there was joy in St. Cuthbert's manse, and in its three devoted hearts, beating high with a common hope. Our morning sun shone radiantly.

But the eclipse came suddenly. It was again the Sabbath evening, and Margaret again was nestling close, her face bearing more and more the beauty which love's tuition gives.

"Father," she suddenly began, "I want to ask you something."

"What is it, child?" I said.

"You know that verse in the Bible that says:--'Who did sin, this man or his parents?' You know the verse. Well father, who did sin? Was it the man, or was it his parents?"

"What a strange question, child! What on earth has that to do with you?"

"Never mind, father--let us stick to the text," she answered. "You are a minister and I want you to stick to the text. Tell me who did sin?"

"Well, if the man's blindness was because of sin, since he was born blind and since he couldn't sin before he was born, I suppose it must have been his parents," I answered slowly. "What difference does it make to you?" For I was curious to know.

"And don't you think," she went on unheedingly, "that it was cruel for anybody to hold that poor man responsible for his parents' sin?"

"I suppose so, but why are you catechizing me like this, burrowing among old questions of two thousand years ago?"

"Oh, father, there are no old questions," and there was a strange cry in her voice, "because there are no old lives. They are all new every day--they all live again, father. Sin is new and sorrow is new--and the Cross is new, father--so new and so cruel," she cried, the tears now flowing fast, "and that question isn't old--it is asked every day. And it is asked of me--and I have to answer it, and answer it as you have done, and as the compassionate Saviour would have done," she concluded, her voice trembling with its passion.

"What on earth do you mean, Margaret? Sin, sorrow, the Cross, what have these to do with you?" I asked eagerly.

"It was only last night that Angus told me. Poor fellow, his face was white when he came and his look was full of agony. Of course I asked him to tell me what was the matter. We were in the library, for I always took him there because it has a fireplace, and we both love to watch the fire. I had laid the wood myself last night before Angus came, and there was never task so dear--it was the gloaming when I laid it, but I knew it would soon be bright.