Up in Ardmuirland Part 3

An hour later, when he ventured to return, he was met on the threshold with the tidings that his wife had been found dead of heart failure.

For many a year after that horrible day Archie McLean was tormented by his reproachful conscience. He regarded himself as a murderer in desire, though actually guiltless of his wife's blood. The terrible shock was his salvation. From that day he never more touched strong drink. The formerly inveterate drunkard, a great portion of whose time was spent in the cells, rose by degrees to the position of the smartest soldier in his company. When his long service had to come to an end, he took a situation as gardener for a time; but a desire which had come upon him when his army service had been completed became still more urgent. He longed to be able to devote himself to a penitential life, as a means of making such atonement as was in his power for his past transgressions. Even while in the army his life had been one of rigorous mortification, dating from the day when he once more began to practise his religion; he shunned no duty, however distasteful, and shrank from no danger.

In response to the keen desire which dominated him, Archie threw up his situation, and searching for some part of the country in which he would not be known, yet where he should find life and surroundings not entirely foreign to his experience, settled at length at Ardmuirland.

For about forty years his life was characterized by a rigorous austerity. His pension was at once carried to the priest, as soon as he received it, to be devoted to the offering of Ma.s.ses for the soul of his unhappy wife, and the relief of the poor--scarcely poorer than himself. He never spent a penny upon his own needs; even the scanty earnings of his labor, unless made in kind, went the same way as his pension. The clothing, even, which charitable persons bestowed upon him in pity soon pa.s.sed into coin for the same end; no scolding of his spiritual Father could prevail upon him to look better after his own well-being.

"I've been a great sinner, Father," he would say. "I owe a big debt to the justice of the Almighty!"

As he had lived, so he died, I had noticed that my brother had shown no surprise, as I did, at the sight of the dying figure of the old man stretched on the bare earth with a stone for his pillow; Val had become familiar with the idea.

"My Saviour died on a Cross for me, and shall I, a vile sinner, be content to die in my bed?" Thus he would always answer the remonstrances of the priest.

Whenever I read the Gospel narrative of Lazarus--the wretchedly clothed, ill-fed, diseased mendicant--who inspired loathing in the eyes and nostrils of the delicately nurtured, sensual men who flocked past his unlovely form to the banquets of the rich glutton at whose palace gate he lay, my thoughts fly at once to my old friend, Archie the penitent, and my prayers rise to Heaven on his behalf in the Church's touching pet.i.tion for the departed:

"c.u.m Lazaro, quondam paupere, eternam habeas requiem!"

"With Lazarus, once poor, now blest May'st thou enjoy eternal rest!"

IV

GOLDEN DREAMS

"All the world is turning golden, turning golden In the spring."

(_Nora Hopper--"April."_)

On a day when May was growing old, everything up at Ardmuirland was green and gold except the sky, and that was mostly blue and gold.

Gorse and broom were in full blossom, so that on all sides the outlook was glorious!

Looking through my field-gla.s.ses to discover the meaning of a column of dense smoke, which seemed to be rising from a hill in the distance, I found myself gazing at a forest in flames! Fire--a very wall of fire--seemed to extend for miles along a dense tract of woodland! So seemingly fierce the blaze that it lighted up with golden gleams the tower of a distant church beyond the wood! Yet, as I looked steadily, it became evident that the flames neither diminished nor increased; presently I discovered that the column of smoke rose from a spot entirely different--more to the foreground. In the end I had to confess with reluctance that my eyes had been deceived; there was no sensational forest fire at all! What I had seen was but the suns.h.i.+ne on an expanse of yellow bloom on some rising ground beyond the belt of woodland, and on the old church tower, while a rare cloud shaded the nearer prospect.

What a silly goat I called myself! Looking nearer home I saw the same red-gold glow, which needed but the suns.h.i.+ne to wake it into flame.

The disused quarry, not half a mile away, where the sun was bright, might have been an open gold mine--so brilliant the s.h.i.+ning of its wealth of broom bushes! The hedge of gorse which bordered the road on both sides had no speck of green to mar its splendor.

"All the world is turning golden, turning golden.

Gold b.u.t.terflies are light upon the wing; Gold is s.h.i.+ning through the eyelids that were holden Till the spring."

The graceful verse haunted me all that day, repeating spontaneously, again and again, its tuneful refrain. For up at Ardmuirland we have to wait till May for settled springtide.

Later on I strolled across to her cottage to have a chat with "Bell o'

the Burn." I found her busy at her washtub on the threshold of the door, but none the less ready to enter into conversation, as I leaned on the garden fence watching her tireless pink hands, as they worked up the snowy soapsuds.

"You've maybe haird the news, sir?" she began, a note of inquiry in her tone.

I had seen yesterday's _Scotsman_, but not in those pages did any of our folk look for news. They read--those, at least, who possess that accomplishment--the stories in the _People's Friend_ and the like, if they were young; those who were older scanned the columns of the local newspaper, published in the county town, and believed firmly in the absolute truth of everything that was a.s.serted there. But "news" meant something more intimate--something which affected our own immediate circle by its relation to the daily life and interests of those around us.

So, knowing this, I did not dream about any startling political crisis, recent mining disaster, or railway collision; Bell knew nothing about such events. Experience had taught me to allow her to enlighten me in her own way. So I put a question to that end.

"Have you heard some news?" I said.

Bell's delight at being first in the field was evident.

"Christian Logan's come intil a fortune!" she replied, with no little delight.

"That is good news, indeed!" I cried impulsively. For Christian was, beyond doubt, one of the poorest of our neighbors, and the most deserving.

"But where did the fortune come from, Bell?" I asked.

"Her mon," explained Bell, "had a cousin oot in Ameriky as fowks allays said wes gey rich. But he niver so much as sent a word to Donal' for years, till juist aboot a week afore the puir mon met wi' his accident, ye ken. An' he says in the letter," continued the old woman, warming up with the interest attaching to her subject, "as Donal' wes the only kin left him, an' he'd find himsel' nane the worse o' that. Alexander Gowan, they callit him."

"And so this cousin is dead, I suppose?"

"Na, na, sir," replied Bell. "Gowan's on his wye back frae Ameriky, ye ken, an' Christian's had word to expect him. Maybe he'll be up here in twa, three days after he lands, like."

This was news with a vengeance! An American who was "gey rich" might be a millionaire! All kinds of rosy visions began to float through my brain. Thoughts of the manifold additions and improvements which Val was dying to make in the church; of the s.h.i.+nty club we were so anxious to start, but could not for want of means; of the hall we planned to build some day for concerts and social gatherings in the long winter evenings--all started into new life at the prospect of a wealthy Catholic returning to his native land with gold in his pocket and a ready hand to scatter it liberally for the benefit of his kinsfolk!

"I suppose he's a Catholic," was the remark to which my mental plans gave birth.

"Aye," said Bell, in a reproachful tone, "the Gowans wes all strict Catholics. The mon would nae turn agen his chapel oot there, I'm thinkin'."

(In Ardmuirland, be it known, "chapel" means the Catholic Church, and "church"--or more frequently "kirk"--denotes exclusively a Protestant place of wors.h.i.+p; thus do penal laws leave their trail behind them!)

"Not likely!" I exclaimed boldly. For Bell began to look anxiously at me, as though the staunch Catholicism of this particular Gowan might be open to question. "Our religion is as free out there as any other; that's one good quality in republican America which our government lacks at present."

Still, my own mind misgave me a little. I knew of more than one of my countrymen who had been "strict Catholics" once, but who had lamentably fallen off through knocking about the world. However, we were not justified in cla.s.sing Gowan with such.

"And will this good man put up at Christian's cottage?" I asked.

"Na, na, Mr. Edmund," said Bell, astonished, "Christian's nae ower weel provided wi' sheets and siclike, ye ken. Na! he's to stay wi' Mistress Dobie at Larrigie Inn. They've redded up the best rooms, and kindled fires and a', to be ready gin he comes soon. The fowks say as Gowan 'll likely have ane o' they motors, like the Squire's at the toon, so as he can drive aboot the countryside and see a' the changes that's come sin' he left."

The world was "turning golden," indeed! My cogitations as I made my way home were touched by the sheen.

Val took it all very calmly (as he is wont, dear boy! whenever I rhapsodize).

"If he happens to be a millionaire, Ted," he remarked--and a twinkle shone through his gla.s.ses--"you may give up all hope of getting anything out of him. It is proverbial that such gentry haggle over a six-pence when it comes to gratuities!"

During the week that followed the whole countryside had no more interesting subject of conversation than the coming of the rich cousin to "make a lady" of Christian Logan.

Christian certainly deserved any good fortune that might fall to her.

She was the young widow of an under-gamekeeper at Taskerton, an estate in our neighborhood. Donald Logan had met with an accident, by the discharge of a gun, and had died of lock-jaw, consequent on the wound.

He had not been very thrifty, poor fellow, for he was too fond of whiskey; the result was that very little means remained for the support of the family when the bread-winner had been taken. The proprietor of Taskerton was generally an absentee, and the casual tenants of the place had little interest in those employed on the estate.

Consequently, Christian had to do her best to support herself and her three young children by her own efforts. Tam and Kirsty, aged respectively twelve and eleven, had to continue at school for a year or two at least; the youngest, Jeemsie, who was only eight, had been deaf and dumb from his birth.