Chapter 14

THE AWAKENING

Night after night for a week afterwards, Mysie lay awake till far on into the morning. She seemed to be face to face with life's realities at last. The silly, shallow love stories held no fascination for her. The love affairs of "Jean the Mill Girl" could not rouse her interest. Often she cried for hours, till exhaustion brought sleep, troubled and unrefreshing.

She grew silent and avoided company. She sang no more at her work, and she avoided Peter, and kept out of his way. She often compared Robert with him now, and loved to let her mind linger on that one mad moment of delirious joy a year ago, when he had crushed her to his breast, and cried to her to be his. Thus womanhood dawned for her, and its great responsibilities frightened her.

Robert, on the other hand, spent a week nursing his injured foot, but apart from the week's idle time, he suffered very little. He felt sore at losing the race, but was able now to look upon it as an unfortunate accident. But that smile which he had seen on the face of Mysie made him strangely happy, and it helped him to get over his disappointment. He was impatient to be out upon the moor again. He would wait for Mysie some night, he concluded, and tell her calmly that he wanted her to marry him.

His mother's prospects were fairly good now. The youngest boy would soon be working; besides, two other brothers were at work, while Jennie, his eldest sister, was in service, and Annie, the younger one, was helping in the house. He waited, night after night, after his injured foot was better--lingering on the moor by the path which Mysie must travel. He lay among the heather and read books, or dreamed of a rosy future, with her the center of his dreams; but no Mysie came along, and he began to grow anxious.

He wanted to make enquiries about her, but feared to arouse suspicion of having too keen an interest in her. By various ways he sought information, but never heard anything definite.

"I see Matthew Maitland's ither lassie has started on the pit-head," he said to his mother, as one night they sat by the fire before retiring.

"Ay," answered Mrs. Sinclair. "Matthew has the worst o' it by noo. Wi' his twa bits o' laddies workin', an' Mysie in service, an' Mary gaun to the pit-head, it should mak' his burden a wee easier."

"I dinna like the idea o' lasses gaun to work on the pithead," he said simply. "I aye mind of the time that Mysie an' me wrocht on it. It's no' a very nice place for lasses or women."

"No," his mother said. "I dinna like it either. Nae guid ever comes o' lasses gaun there. They lose a' sense o' modesty an' decency, after a while, an' are no' like women at a' when they grow aulder. Besides, it mak's them awfu' coorse."

"I wad hardly say that aboot them a'," he ventured cautiously. "Mysie's no' coorse, an' she worked on the pithead."

"No, Mysie's no' coorse," admitted his mother; "but Mysie didna work very lang on the pit-head. An' forby, we dinna ken but what Mysie micht hae been better if she had never been near it, or worse if she had stayed langer. Just look at Susan Morton, an' that Mag Lindsay. What are they but shameless lumps who dinna ken what modesty is?" and there was a spark of the old scorn in her voice as she finished.

"Oh, but I wadna gang as faur as you, mither," he said, "wi' your condemnations. I ken that baith Susan Morton an' Mag Lindsay are guid-hearted women. They may be coarse in their talk, an' a' that sort o' thing; but they are as kind-hearted as onybody else, an' kinder than some."

"Oh; I hae nae doot," she answered relentingly. "I didna mean that at a'; but the pit-head doesna make them ony better, an' it's no' wark for them at a'."

"I mind," said Robert reminiscently, "when Mysie an' me started on the pit-head, Mag Lindsay was awfu' guid to Mysie; an' I've kent her often sharin' her piece wi' wee Dicky Tamson, whiles when he had nane, if his mother happened to be on the fuddle for a day or twa. There's no a kinderhearted woman in Lowwood, mither, than Mag Lindsay. She'd swear at Dicky a' the time she was stappin' her piece into him. It was jist her wye, an' I think she couldna help it."

"Oh, ay, Mag's bark is waur then her bite. I ken that," was the reply. "An' wi' a' her fauts a body canna help likin' her."

"Speakin' of Mysie," said Robert with caution, "I hinna seen her owre for a while surely. Wull there be onything wrang?" and then, to hide the agitation he felt, "she used to come owre hame aboot twice a week, an' I hinna seen her for a while."

"Oh, there canna be onything wrang," replied Nellie, "or we wad hae heard tell o' it. But t' is time we were awa' to oor beds, or we'll no' be able to rise in time the morn," and rising as she spoke, she began to make preparations for retiring, and he withdrew to his room also.

Still, day after day, he hung about the moorland path, but no Mysie, so far as he knew, ever came past. She had visited her parents only once since the games and her mother was struck by her subdued and thoughtful demeanor. But nothing was said at the time.

Robert grew impatient, and began to roam nearer to Rundell House, in the hope of seeing her. Always his thoughts were full of Mysie and the raging passion in his blood for her gave him no rest. He loved to trace her name linked with his own, and then to obliterate it again, in case anyone would see it. All day his thoughts were of her; and her sweet, shy smile that day of the games was nursed in memory till it grew to be a solace to his heart and its hunger.

He saw likenesses to her in everything, and even the call of the moor-birds awakened some memory of an incident of childhood, when Mysie and he had, with other children, played together on the moors. Even the very words which she had spoken, or the way she had acted, or how she had looked, in cheap cotton frock and pinafore, were recalled by a familiar cry, or by the sudden discovery of a bog-flower in bloom.

It was a glorious afternoon in late July. The hum of insect life seemed to flood the whole moor; the scent of mown hay and wild thyme, and late hawthorn blossom from the trees on the edge of the moor, was heavy in the air, and the sun was very hot, and still high in the heavens. The hills that bordered the moor drowsed and brooded, like ancient gods, clothed in a lordly radiance that was slowly consuming them as they meditated upon their coming oblivion.

The heather gave promise, in the tiny purple buds that sprouted from the strong, rough stems, of the blaze of purple glory that would carpet the moors with magic in the coming days of autumn. Yet there was a vague hint, in the too deep silence, and in the great clouds that were slowly drifting along the sky, of pent-up force merely awaiting the time to be set free to gallop across the moor in anger and destruction. The clouds, too, were deeply red, with orange touches here and there, trailing into dark inky ragged edges.

Far away, at the foot of the hills a crofter's cow lowed lazily, calling forth a summons to be taken in and relieved of its burden of milk. The sheep came nearer to the "bughts," and the lambs burrowed for nourishment, with tails wagging, as they drew their sustenance, prodding and punching the patient mothers in the operation of feeding. Robert, noting all, with leisured enjoyment strolled lazily into the little copse, and lay down beneath the cool, grateful shelter of the trees.

Drugged by the sweetness and the solitude, he fell asleep, and the sun was low on the horizon when he awoke, the whole copse ringing with the evening songs of merle and mavis, and other less musical birds, and, as he looked down the glade, he saw, out on the moorland path, coming straight for the grove, the form of Mysie--the form of which he had dreamed, and for which he had longed so much.

The hot blood mounted to his face and raced through his frame, while his heart thumped at the thought that now, in the quietness of the dell, he would meet her and speak to her. He would speak calmly, and not frighten her, as he had done on that former occasion; and he braced himself to meet her.

Impatiently he waited, and then, as he saw her about to enter the grove, he rose as unconcernedly as he could, trying hard to assume the air of one who had met her by accident, and stepped on to the path when Mysie was within ten yards or so of him.

The color left her face, and her limbs felt weak beneath her, as she recognized him, and he was quick to note the change in her whole appearance.

She was paler, he thought, and thinner, and the bloom of a few weeks ago was gone. Her eyes were listless, and the soft, shy look had been replaced by an averted shame-stricken one. She was plainly flurried by the meeting, and looking about trying to find if there were not, even yet, a way of evading it.

"It's a fine nicht, Mysie," he began, stammering and halting before her, "though I think it is gaun to work to rain."

"Ay," she responded hurriedly, her agitation growing, as she was forced to halt before him.

"I've come oot on the muir a wheen o' nichts noo, to try an' meet you," he began, getting into the business right away, "an' I had begun to think you had stopped comin' owre."

But Mysie answered never a word. Her face grew paler, and her agitation became more evident.

"Mysie," he began, now fully braced for the important matter in view, "I want you to marry me. I want you to be my wife. You've kenned me a' my life. We gaed to the school together, and we gaed to work together, an' I hae aye looked on you as my lass. I canna keep it ony langer noo. I hae wanted to tell you a lang time aboot it, an' to ask you to be my wife. My place at hame is easier noo. My mother has the rest o' the family comin' on to take my place, and her battle is gey weel owre, an' I can see prospects o' settin' up a hoose o' my ain, if you'll agree to share it with me. I haven't muckle to offer you, but I think you'll ken by this time that I'll be guid to you. Mysie, I want you. Will you come?"

For answer, Mysie burst into tears, her shoulders heaving with the sobs of her grief, her breast surging and falling, while her little hands covered her eyes, as she stood with bent head, a pitiable little figure.

"What is it, Mysie?" he enquired, his hands at once going tenderly over her bent head, and caressing it as he spoke, "What is it, Mysie? Tell me. Hae I vexed you by speakin' like that? Dinna greet, Mysie," he went on soothingly, his voice soft and tender, and vibrant with sympathy and love. "Dinna greet. But tell me what's wrang. I'm sorry if it's me that has done it, Mysie. Maybe I hae frightened you; but, there now, dinna greet. I didna mean ony harm!" and he stroked and caressed her hair softly with his hands, or patted her shoulders at every word, as a mother does with a fretful child.

"There noo, Mysie, dinna greet," he said again, the soft, soothing note of vexation in his voice growing more tender and husky with emotion. "Look up, Mysie, for I dinna like to see you greetin'. It maun be something gey bad, surely, to mak' you greet like this," and his hands seemed to stab her with every tender touch, and his soft words but added more pain to her grief.

But still Mysie never answered. Her tears instead flowed faster, and her sobs grew heavier, until finally she moaned like a stricken animal in pain.

"Mysie! Mysie! my dochter, what is it?" unable to control himself longer. "Surely you can tell me what ails you? What is it, Mysie? Look up, my dear! Look up an' tell me what ails you!"

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" moaned Mysie, the floodgates of her grief now wide, and her soul in torture.

"Mysie," he cried, taking her head between his hands and raising it up, "what is it that's wrang with you? Is it me that is the cause o' you being vexed?"

"Oh, no, no," she moaned, trying to avert her face. "Oh, dinna, Rob!" she pleaded, and the old familiar name smote him and thrilled him as of old.

"Tell me what is the matter," he said, a stronger note in his voice, the old masterful spirit asserting itself again. "What is wrang wi' you? I can't understand it, an' I wish to try an' help you."

But still she sobbed and there was no answer.

"Look here," he said. "Tell me plainly if I have been the cause of this."

"No; oh, no," she sobbed, again hiding her eyes with her hands.

"Very weel, then," he went on. "Will you no' tell me what is wrong? I canna understand it unless you tell me. Are you in ony trouble o' ony kind? Speak, Mysie." Then, his voice becoming more pleading in its tones, "Wad you be feart to be my wife, Mysie? I aye thocht you cared for me. I hae loved you a' my days. You maun ken that, I think. Speak up, Mysie, an' tell me if you care for me. I want you, an' I maun ken what you think o' it. Come, Mysie, tell me!"

"Oh, dinna ask me, Rob," she pleaded. "Dinna ask me!"

"What is the matter then?" he cried. "There's something wrong, an' you'll no' tell me. Very well, tell me what you mean to do. I hae asked you a fair question. Are you going to marry me? I want yes or no to that," and there was a touch of impatience creeping into his voice.

"Come on," he urged, after a short silence, broken only by Mysie's sobs, "gie me an answer. Or, if you wad raither wait a wee while, till this trouble has blawn by that is bothering you, I'm quite agreeable to wait."

"It'll never blaw by, Rob," she sobbed. "Oh, dinna ask me ony mair. I canna be your wife noo, an' I jist want to be left alane!"

The pain and despair in her voice alarmed him. It was so keen and poignant, and went to his heart like a knife.

"Oh!" he gasped in surprise, as he strove to call his pride to his assistance. It was so unlike what he had anticipated that it amazed him to have such a disappointing reply. Then, recovering somewhat:--"Very well!" with great deliberation, while his voice sounded unnaturally strained. Then the effort failing, and his pride breaking down: "Oh, Mysie, Mysie," he burst out in poignant agony again relapsing into the pleading wooing tones that were so difficult to withstand, "How I hae loved you! I thocht you cared for me. I hae built mysel' up in you, an' I'll never, never be able to forget you! Oh, think what it is! You hae been life itsel' to me, Mysie, an' I canna think that you dinna care! Oh, Mysie!"

He turned away, his heart sore and his soul wounded, and strode from the copse out on to the moor, a thousand thoughts driving him on, a thousand regrets pursuing, and a load of pain in his heart that was bearing his spirit down.

"Oh, dear God!" moaned Mysie, kneeling down, her legs unable to support her longer, "Oh, dear God, my heart'll break!" and a wild burst of sobbing shook her frame, and her grief overpowering flowed through the tears--a picture of utter despair and terrible hopelessness.

Robert tore away from the dell, his whole calculation of things upset. To think that Mysie could not love him had never entered his head. What was wrong with her? What was the nature of her terrible grief?

He kicked savagely at a thistle which grew upon the edge of the pathway, his pride wounded, but now in possession of the citadel of his heart; and on he strode, still driven by the terrible passion raging within him; resolving already, as many have done under like circumstances, that his life was finished. Hope had gone, dreams were unreal and vanishing as the mist that crawled along the bog-pools at night.

At the crest of the little hill, just where it sloped down to the village, he stood and looked back.

Good God! Was he seeing aright! The figure of a man, who in the gray gloaming looked well-dressed, was approaching Mysie, and she was slowly moving to meet him. A few steps more, and the man had the girl, he thought, in his arms, and was kissing her where they stood.

Was he dreaming? What was the meaning of all this? "Oh, Christ!" he groaned. "What does it all mean?" and he rubbed his eyes and looked again, then sat down, all his pride and anger raging within him as he watched, kindling the jungle instinct within him into a raging fire, to fight for his mate--his by right of class and association. He doubled back, as the two figures turned in the direction of the copse--the resolve in his mind to go back and forcibly tear Mysie from this unknown stranger. He would fight for her. She was his, and he was prepared to assert his right of possession before all the world.

In a mad fury he started forward, a raging anger in his heart, striding along in quick, determined, relentless steps, his blood jumping and his energy roused, and all the madness of a strong nature coursing through him; but after a few yards he hesitated, stopped, and then turned back.

After all, Mysie must have made an appointment with this man. She evidently wanted him, and that was her reason for asking to be left alone.

"Oh, God!" he groaned again, sitting down. "This is hellish!" and he began to turn over the whole business in his mind once more.

Long he sat, and the darkness fell over the moor, matching the darkness that brooded over his heart and mind. He heard the moor-birds crying in restlessness, and saw the clouds piling themselves up, and come creeping darkly over the higher ground, bringing a threat of rain in their wake. The moan in the wind became louder, presaging a storm; but still he sat or lay upon the rough, withered grass, fighting out his battle, meeting the demons of despair and gloom, and the legions of pain and misery, in greater armies than ever he had met them before.

Again he groaned, as his ear caught the plaintive note of a widowed partridge, which sat behind him upon a grassy knoll of turf, crying out on the night air, an ache in every cry, the grief and sorrow of his wounded, breaking heart.

It seemed to Robert that there was a strange sort of kinship between him and the bird--a kinship and understanding which touched a chord of ready feeling in his heart. The ominous hoot of an owl in the wood startled him, and he rose to his feet. He could not sit still. Idleness would drive him mad. He strode off on to the moor, away from the track, his whole being burning in torture, and his mind a mass of unconnected fancies and pains.

Over the bogs and through the marshes, the madness of despair within him, he heeded not the deep ditches and the bog-pools. They were the pits of darkness, the sty-pools, which his soul must either cross, or in which he must perish. He tore up the hills into the mists and the rising storm, the thick clouds, full of rain, enveloping him, and matching the terrible fury of his breast.

On, ever on, in the darkness and the mire, through clumps of whin and stray bushes of wild briar. On, always on, driven and lashed into action by the resistless desire to get away from himself. He knew not the direction he had taken. He had lost his bearings on the moor; the darkness had completely hidden the landmarks, and even had he been conscious of his actions, he could not have told in which part of the moor he was.

"Oh, God!" he groaned again, almost falling over a bush of broom; and sitting down, he buried his face in his hands, and, forgetful of the wind and the rain, which now drove down in torrents, sat and brooded and thought, his mind seeking to understand the chaos of despair.

What was the meaning of life? What was beyond it after death? Would immortality, if such there were, be worth having? Men in countless, unthinkable millions, had lived, and loved, and lost, and passed on. Did immortality carry with it pain and suffering for them? If not, did it carry happiness and balm? To hell with religions and philosophies, he thought; they were all a parcel of fairy tales to drug men's minds and keep them tame; and he glared impotently at the pitiless heavens, as if he would defy gods, and devils, and men. He would be free--free in mind, in thought, and unhampered by unrealities!

No. Men had the shaping of their own lives. Pride would be his ally. He would lock up this episode in his heart, and at the end of time for him, there would be an end of the pain and the regret, when he was laid among the myriad millions of men of all the countless ages since man had being.

This was immortality; to be forever robed in the dreamless draperies of eternal oblivion, rather than have eternal life, with all its torments--mingling with the legions of the past, and with mother earth--the dust of success and happiness indistinguishable from the dust of failure and despair. Time alone would be his relief--the great physician that healed all wounds.

The wind blew stronger and the rain fell heavier, the one chasing, the other in raging gusts, and both tearing round and lashing the form of the man who sat motionless and unaware of all this fury. The wind god tried to shake him up by rushing and roaring at him; but still there was no response. Then, gathering re-inforcements, he came on in a mad charge, driving a cloud of rain in front of him as a sort of spear-head to break the defense of fearlessness and unconcern of this unhappy mortal. Yet the figure moved not.

Baffled and still more angry, the wind god retired behind the hills again to rest; then, driving a larger rain-cloud before him, with a roar and a crash he tore down the slope, raging and tearing in a wild tumult of anger, straight against the lonely figure which sat there never moving, his head sunk upon his breast.

Beaten and sullen, the god again retired to re-collect his strength. He moaned and growled as he retired, frightening the moor-birds and the hares, which lay closer to earth, their little hearts quivering with fear. Young birds were tucked safely under the parent wing, as terror strode across the moor, striking dread into every fluttering little heart and shivering body. Low growled the wind, as he ran around his broken forces, gathering again new forces in greater and greater multitudes.

Just then, with an oath, the figure rose and faced the storm, striding again up the slope, as if determined to carry the war into the camp of the enemy.

A low growl came rumbling from the hills, as the wind god rushed along, encouraging his legions, threatening, coaxing, pleading, commanding them to fight, and so to overcome this figure who now boldly faced his great army.

The advance guard of the storm broke upon him in wild desperation, rushing and thundering, howling and yelling, sputtering and hissing, spitting and hitting at him, and then the main body struck him full in the face, all the bulk and the force of it hurled upon him with terrible impetuous abandon, and Robert's foot striking a tuft at the moment, he went down, down into a bog-pool among the slush and moss, and decaying heather-roots, down before the mad rush of the wind-god's army, who roared and shouted in glee, with a voice that shook the hills and called upon the elements to laugh and rejoice.

And the widowed partridge out upon the moor, creeping closer to the lee side of his tuft of moss, cried out in his pain, not because of the fury of the blast, but because of the heart that was breaking under the little shivering body for the dead mate, who had meant so much of life and happiness to him--cried with an ache in every cry, and the heart of the man responded in his great, overpowering grief.