Salted with Fire Part 16

All this time he was letting the soutar stand on the doorstep, with the new boots in his hand.

"Come in," he said at last, "and put them there in the window. It's about time we were all going to bed, I think--especially myself, to-morrow being sermon-day!"

The soutar betook himself to his home and to bed, sorry that he had said nothing, yet having said more than he knew.

The next evening he listened to the best sermon he had yet heard from that pulpit--a summary of the facts bearing on the resurrection of our Lord;--with which sermon, however, a large part of the congregation was anything but pleased; for the minister had admitted the impossibility of reconciling, in every particular, the differing accounts of the doings and seeings of those who bore witness to it.

"--As gien," said the soutar, "the Lord wasna to shaw himsel till a'

that had seen he was up war agreed as to their recollection o' what fouk had report.i.t!"

He went home edified and uplifted by his fresh contemplation of the story of his Master's victory: thank G.o.d! he thought; his pains were over at last! and through death he was lord for ever over death and evil, over pain and loss and fear, who was already through his father lord of creation and life, and of all things visible and invisible! He was Lord also of all thinking and feeling and judgment, able to give repentance and restoration, and to set right all that selfwill had set wrong! So greatly did the heart of his humble disciple rejoice in him, that he scandalized the reposing sabbath-street, by breaking out, as he went home, into a somewhat unmelodious song, "They are all gone down to h.e.l.l with the weapons of their war!" to a tune n.o.body knew but himself, and which he could never have sung again. "O Faithful and True," he broke out once more as he reached his own house; but checked himself abruptly, saying, "Tut, tut, the fowk'll think I hae been drinkin'!--Eh," he continued to himself as he went in, "gien I micht but ance hear the name that no man kens but Himsel!"

The next day he was very tired, and could get through but little work; so, on the Tuesday he felt it would be right to take a holiday.

Therefore he put a large piece of oatcake in his pocket, and telling Maggie he was going to the hills, "to do nae thing and a'thing, baith at ance, a' day," disappeared with a backward look and lingering smile.

He went brimful of expectation, and was not disappointed in those he met by the way.

After walking some distance in quiescent peace, and having since noontide met no one--to use his own fas.h.i.+on of speech--by which he meant that no special thought had arisen uncalled-for in his mind, always regarding such a thought as a word direct from the First Thought, he turned his steps toward Stonecross. He had known Peter Blatherwick for many years, and honoured him as one in whom there was no guile; and now the desire to see him came upon him: he wanted to share with him the pleasure and benefit he had gathered from Sunday's sermon, and show the better quality of the food their pastor had that day laid before his sheep. He knocked at the door, thinking to see the mistress, and hear from her where her husband was likely to be found; but to his surprise, the farmer came himself to the door, where he stood in silence, with a look that seemed to say, "I know you; but what can you be wanting with me?" His face was troubled, and looked not only sorrowful, but scared as well. Usually ruddy with health, and calm with content, it was now blotted with pallid shades, and seemed, as he held the door-handle without a word of welcome, that of one aware of something unseen behind him.

"What ails ye, Mr. Bletherwick?" asked the soutar, in a voice that faltered with sympathetic anxiety. "Surely--I houp there's naething come ower the mistress!"

"Na, I thank ye; she's vera weel. But a dreid thing has befa'en her and me. It's little mair nor an hoor sin syne 'at oor Isy--ye maun hae h'ard tell o' Isy, 'at we baith had sic a fawvour for--a' at ance she jist drappit doon deid as gien shotten wi' a gun! In fac I thoucht for a meenut, though I h'ard nae shot, that sic had been the case. The ae moment she steed newsin wi' her mistress i' the kitchie, and the neist she was in a heap upo' the fleer o' 't!--But come in, come in."

"Eh, the bonnie la.s.sie!" cried the shoemaker, without moving to enter; "I min' upo' her weel, though I believe I never saw her but ance!--a fine, delicat pictur o' a la.s.sie, that luikit up at ye as gien she made ye kin'ly welcome to onything she could gie or get for ye!"

"Aweel, as I'm tellin ye," said the farmer, "she's awa'; and we'll see her no more till the earth gies up her deid! The wife's in there wi'

what's left o' her, greitin as gien she wad greit her een oot. Eh, but she lo'ed her weel:--Doon she drappit, and no even a moment to say her prayers!"

"That maitters na muckle--no a hair, in fac!" returned the soutar. "It was the Father o' her, nane ither, that took her. He want.i.t her hame; and he's no are to dee onything ill, or at the wrang moment! Gien a meenut mair had been ony guid til her, thinkna ye she wud hae had that meenut!"

"Willna ye come in and see her? Some fowk canna bide to luik upo the deid, but ye're no are o' sic!"

"Na; it's trowth I daurna be nane o' sic. I s' richt wullinly gang wi'

ye to luik upo the face o' ane 'at's won throuw!"

"Come awa' than; and maybe the Lord 'ill gie ye a word o' comfort for the mistress, for she taks on terrible aboot her. It braks my hert to see her!"

"The hert o' baith king and cobbler's i' the ae han' o' the Lord,"

answered the soutar solemnly; "and gien my hert indite onything, my tongue 'ill be ready to speyk the same."

He followed the farmer--who trode softly, as if he feared disturbing the sleeper--upon whom even the sudden silences of the world would break no more.

Mr. Blatherwick led the way to the parlour, and through it to a closet behind, used as the guest-chamber. There, on a little white bed with dimity curtains, lay the form of Isobel. The eyes of the soutar, in whom had lingered yet a hope, at once revealed that he saw she was indeed gone to return no more. Her lovely little face, although its beautiful eyes were closed, was even lovelier than before; but her arms and hands lay straight by her sides; their work was gone from them; no voice would call her any more! she might sleep on, and take her rest!

"I had but to lay them straucht," sobbed her mistress; "her een she had closed hersel as she drappit! Eh, but she _was_ a bonny la.s.sie--and a guid!--hardly less nor ain bairn to me!"

"And to me as weel!" supplemented Peter, with a choked sob.

"And no ance had I paid her a penny wage!" cried Marion, with sudden remorseful reminiscence.

"She'll never think o' wages noo!" said her husband. "We'll sen' them to the hospital, and that'll ease yer min', Mirran!"

"Eh, she was a dacent, mensefu, richt lo'able cratur!" cried Marion.

"She never _said_ naething to jeedge by, but I hae a glimmer o' houp 'at she _may_ ha' been ane o' the Lord's ain."

"Is that a' ye can say, mem?" interposed the soutar. "Surely ye wadna daur imaigine her drappit oot o' _his_ han's!"

"Na," returned Marion; "but I wad richt fain ken her fair intil them!

Wha is there to a.s.sure 's o' her faith i' the atonement?"

"Deed, I kenna, and I carena, mem! I houp she had faith i' naething, thing nor thoucht, but the Lord himsel! Alive or deid, we're in his han's wha dee'd for us, revealin his Father til 's," said the soutar; "--and gien she didna ken Him afore, she wull noo! The holy All-in-all be wi' her i' the dark, or whatever comes!--O G.o.d, hand up her heid, and latna the watters gang ower her!"

So-called Theology rose, dull, rampant, and indignant; but the solemn face of the dead interdicted dispute, and Love was ready to hope, if not quite to believe. Nevertheless to those guileless souls, the words of the soutar sounded like blasphemy: was not her fate settled, and for ever? Had not death in a moment turned her into an immortal angel, or an equally immortal devil? Only how, at such a moment, with the peaceful face before them, were they to argue the possibility that she, the loving, the gentle, whose fault they knew but by her own voluntary confession, was now as utterly indifferent to the heart of the living G.o.d, as if He had never created her--nay even had become hateful to him! No one spoke; and the soutar, after gazing on the dead for a while, prayer overflowing his heart, but never reaching his lips, turned slowly, and departed without a word.

As he reached his own door, he met the minister, and told him of the sorrow that had befallen his parents, adding that it was plain they were in sore need of his sympathy. James, although marvelling at their being so much troubled by the death of merely a servant, was roused by the tale to the duty of his profession; and although his heart had never yet drawn him either to the house of mourning or the house of mirth, he judged it becoming to pay another visit to Stonecross, thinking it, however, rather hard that he should have to go again so soon. It pleased the soutar to see him face about at once, however, and start for the farm with a quicker stride than, since his return to Tiltowie as its minister, he had seen him put forth.

James had not the slightest foreboding of whom he was about to see in the arms of Death. But even had he had some feeling of what was awaiting him, I dare not even conjecture the mood in which he would have approached the house--whether one of compunction, or of relief.

But utterly unconscious of the discovery toward which he was rus.h.i.+ng, he hurried on, with a faint pleasure at the thought of having to expostulate with his mother upon the waste of such an unnecessary expenditure of feeling. Toward his father, he was aware of a more active feeling of disapproval, if not indeed one of repugnance. James Blatherwick was of such whose sluggish natures require, for the melting of their stubbornness, and their remoulding into forms of strength and beauty, such a concentration of the love of G.o.d that it becomes a consuming fire.

CHAPTER XXII

The night had fallen when he reached the farm. The place was silent; its doors were all shut; and when he opened the nearest, seldom used but for the reception of strangers, not a soul was to be seen; no one came to meet him, for no one had even thought of him, and certainly no one, except it were the dead, desired his coming. He went into the parlour, and there, from the dim chamber beyond, whose door stood open, appeared his mother. Her heart big with grief, she clasped him in her arms, and laid her cheek against his bosom: higher she could not reach, and nearer than his breast-bone she could not get to him. No endearment was customary between them: James had never encouraged or missed any; neither did he know how to receive such when offered.

"I am distressed, mother," he began, "to see you so upset; and I cannot help thinking such a display of feeling unnecessary. If I may say so, it seems to me unreasonable. You cannot, in such a brief period as this new maid of yours has spent with you, have developed such an affection for her, as this--" he hesitated for a word, "--as this _boulevers.e.m.e.nt_ would seem to indicate! The young woman can hardly be a relative, or I should surely have heard of her existence! The suddenness of the occurrence, of which I heard only from my shoemaker, MacLear, must have wrought disastrously upon your nerves! Come, come, dear mother! you must indeed compose yourself! It is quite unworthy of you, to yield to such a paroxysm of unnatural and uncalled-for grief! Surely it is the part of a Christian like you, to meet with calmness, especially in the case of one you have known so little, that inevitable change which neither man nor woman can avoid longer than a few years at most! Of course, the appalling instantaneousness of it in the present case, goes far to explain and excuse your emotion, but now at least, after so many hours have elapsed, it is surely time for reason to resume her sway! Was it not Schiller who said, 'Death cannot be an evil, for it is universal'?--At all events, it is not an unmitigated evil!" he added--with a sigh, as if for his part he was prepared to welcome it.

During this prolonged and foolish speech, the gentle woman, whose mother-heart had loved the poor girl that bore her daughter's name, had been restraining her sobs behind her handkerchief; but now, as she heard her son's cold commonplaces, it was, perhaps, a little wholesome anger that roused her, and made her able to speak.

"Ye didna ken her, laddie," she cried, "or ye wad never mint at layin yer tongue upon her that gait!--'Deed na, ye wadna!--But I doobt gien ever ye could hae come to ken her as she was--sic a bonny, herty sowl as ance dwalt in yon white-faced, patient thing, lyin i' the chaumer there--wi' the stang oot o' her hert at last, and left the sharper i'

mine! But me and yer father--eh, weel we lo'ed her! for to hiz she was like oor ain Isy,--ay, mair a dochter nor a servan--wi'a braw lovin kin'ness in her, no to be luikit for frae ony son, and sic as we never had frae ony afore but oor ain Isy.--Jist gang ye intil the closet there, gien ye wull, and ye'll see what'll maybe saften yer hert a bit, and lat ye unerstan' what mak o' a thing's come to the twa auld fowk ye never cared muckle aboot!"

James felt bitterly aggrieved by this personal remark of his mother. How unfair she was! What had _he_ ever done to offend her? Had he not always behaved himself properly--except indeed in that matter of which neither she, nor living soul else, knew anything, or would ever know! What right had she then to say such things to him! Had he not fulfilled the expectations with which his father sent him to college? had he not gained a position whose reflected splendour crowned them the parents of James Blatherwick? She showed him none of the consideration or respect he had so justly earned but never demanded! He rose suddenly, and with never a thought save to leave his mother so as to manifest his displeasure with her, stalked heedlessly into the presence of the more heedless dead.

The night had indeed fallen, but, the little window of the room looking westward, and a bar of golden light yet lying like a resurrection stone over the spot where the sun was buried, a pale sad gleam, softly vanis.h.i.+ng, hovered, hardly rested, upon the lovely, still, unlooking face, that lay white on the scarcely whiter pillow. Coming out of the darker room, the sharp, low light blinded him a little, so that he saw without any certainty of perception; yet he seemed to have something before him not altogether unfamiliar, giving him a suggestion as of something he had known once, perhaps ought now to recognize, but had forgotten: the reality of it seemed to be obscured by the strange autumnal light entering almost horizontally. Concluding himself oddly affected by the sight of a room he had regarded with some awe in his childhood, and had not set foot in it for a long time, he drew a little nearer to the bed, to look closer at the face of this paragon of servants, whose loss was causing his mother a sorrow so unreasonably poignant.

The sense of her resemblance to some one grew upon him; but not yet had he begun to recognize the death-changed countenance; he became a.s.sured only that he _had_ seen that still face before, and that, would she but open those eyes, he should know at once who she was.

Then the true suspicion flashed upon him: good G.o.d! _could it be_ the dead Isy? Of course not! It was the merest illusion! a nonsensical fancy, caused by the irregular mingling of the light and darkness! In the daytime he could not have been so befooled by his imagination! He had always known the clearness, both physical and mental, with which he saw everything! Nevertheless, the folly had power to fix him staring where he stood, with his face leant close to the face of the dead. It was only like, it could not be the same! and yet he could not turn and go from it! Why did he not, by the mere will in whose strength he took pride, force his way out of the room? He stirred not a foot; he stared and stood. And as he stared, the dead face seemed to come nearer him through the darkness, growing more and more like the only girl he had ever, though even then only in fancy, loved. If it was not she, how could the dead look so like the living he had once known? At length what doubt was left, changed suddenly to a.s.surance that it must be she.

And--dare I say it?--it brought him a sense of relief! He breathed a sigh of such false, rascally peace as he had not known since his sin, and with that sigh he left the room. Pa.s.sing his mother, who still wept in the now deeper dusk of the parlour, with the observation that there was no moon, and it would be quite dark before he reached the manse, he bade her good-night, and went out.

When Peter, who unable to sit longer inactive had gone to the stable, re-entered, foiled in the attempt to occupy himself, and sat down by his wife, she began to talk about the funeral preparations, and the persons to be invited. But such sorrow overtook him afresh, that even his wife, herself inconsolable over her loss, was surprised at the depth of his grief for one who was no relative. It seemed to him indelicate, almost heartless of her to talk so soon of burying the dear one but just gone from their sight: it was unnecessary dispatch, and suggested a lack of reverence!

"What for sic a hurry?" he expostulated. "Isna there time eneuch to put oot o' yer sicht what ye ance lo'ed sae weel? Lat me be the nicht; the morn 'ill be here sene eneuch! Lat my sowl rest a moment wi' deith, and haud awa wi yer funeral. 'Sufficient til the day,' ye ken!"

"Eh dear, but I'm no like you, Peter! Whan the sowl's gane, I tak no content i' the presence o' the puir worthless body, luikin what it never mair can be! Na, I wad be rid o' 't, I confess!--But be it as ye wull, my ain man! It's a sair hert ye hae as weel as me i' yer body this nicht; and we maun beir ane anither's burdens! The dauty may lie as we hae laid her, the nicht throuw, and naething said: there's little to be dene for her; she's a bonny clean corp as ever was, and may weel lie a week afore we put her awa'!--There's no need for ony to watch her; tyke nor baudrins 'ill never come near her.--I hae aye won'ert what for fowk wad sit up wi the deid: yet I min' me weel they aye did i' the auld time."