The Billow and the Rock Part 8

"There is an hour yet," thought she. "I am sure it will burn an hour; and something may be sent by that time."

She took off her cotton handkerchief, tore off the hem, and ravelled out the cotton as quickly as she could, and twisted it into a wick which she thought she could fix by a skewer across a tin cup from which Rollo drank his whisky when at home. She brought down from the chimney and looked over rapidly all the oily parts of the fish, and every fatty portion of the dried meat hung up in the smoke for winter use; and these she made a desperate endeavour to melt in the flames of her lamp. She wrung out a few drops,--barely enough to soak her wick. This would not burn five minutes. She persevered to the last moment,--saying to herself, "Not once for these seventeen years since I saw my husband drown, has there been a dark night between this window and the sea. Not once has my spark been put out: and I will not think it now. G.o.d can kindle fire where He pleases. I have heard tell that people in foreign countries have seen a lightning-shaft dart down into a forest, and make a tree blaze up like a torch. G.o.d has His own ways."

All the while her hands wrought so busily that she scarcely felt their aching in the cold of the night. But now her new wick was wanted, for the old was going out. It blazed up, but she saw it must soon be gone.

She broke up her old stool, all shattered as it was already. Some splinters she stuck one after another into the lamp; and then she burned the larger pieces in the hearth, saying to herself incessantly, as if for support, "G.o.d has His own ways."

But the rising and falling flame became more and more uncertain; and at last, very suddenly, it went quite out. There was not, in another minute, a spark left.

For a while there was silence in the cottage, now dark for the first time since Annie was a widow. She crept to her cold bed; and there, under cover of the strange darkness she shed a few tears. But soon she said to herself, "G.o.d has His own ways of kindling our spirits as well as the flame of a lamp. Perhaps by humbling me, or by changing my duty when I became too fond of it, He may warm my heart to new trust in Him.

His will be done! But He will let me pray that there may be none in the harbour this night who may drown, or be buffeted in the storm because He is pleased to darken my light."

Before she had quite calmed her heart with this prayer, there was noise at a little distance, and red gleams on the fitful mist which drove past the window; and then followed a loud knocking at the door.

It was Macdonald with his people, come to see whether the lady was safe.

He looked perplexed and uneasy when Annie told him that she could not think that the lady could be otherwise than safe, now she knew the places about the island so well, and was so fearless. It often happened that she was absent for a night and day; and no doubt the storm had this night detained her and her companions in some sheltered place,--some place where, she had reason to believe, they had fire and light. As for herself, when Annie saw the torch that Macdonald carried, her eyes glistened in the blaze, and she said once more in the depth of her mind, "Surely G.o.d has His own ways."

Macdonald was very wrathful when he learned by questioning Annie how it was that her house was dark. As he hastily kindled the peats he brought in from the stack, he muttered that it seemed to have pleased G.o.d to afflict the island again with a witch, after all the pains that were taken twenty years before, as he well remembered, to clear the place of one. This woman must be a witch--

"Nay," said Annie. "I take her to be sent to us for good. Let us wait and learn."

"Good? What good?"

"It is through her, you see, that I find how kind a neighbour you are, at need," replied Annie; not adding aloud what she was thinking of,--how this night had proved that G.o.d brings help at the least likely moments.

"She is a witch," Macdonald persisted. "No power short of that could have quenched your lamp, and drawn away your only son from honouring his parent to be a slave to a stranger."

As Annie could not at the moment speak, Macdonald went on raising a flame meantime by flapping the end of his plaid.

"It is the chapel, I know. Things have never gone well for any length of time here since the chapel fell completely down, and the bleat of the kid came out from where the psalm ought to sound. We must apply ourselves to build up the chapel; and, as there is a minister coming, we may hope to be released from witches and every kind of curse."

"There will be little room for any kind of curse," thought Annie, "when the minister has taught us to 'be kindly affectioned one to another,'

and not to make our little island more stormy with pa.s.sions than it ever is with tempests of wind and hail."

"There, now, there is a good fire for you," said Macdonald, rising from his knees; "and I won't ask you. Annie, what was in your mind as the blaze made your eyes s.h.i.+ne. I won't ask you, because you might tell me that I am in need of the minister, to make me merciful to a banished lady. Ah, your smile shows that that is what you were thinking of. But I can tell you this: she is a wicked woman. Her father committed murder, and she is quite able and willing to do the same thing. So I must go and find her, and take care that her foot is set in no boat but mine."

"Yours?"

"Yes. I must carry her out of the way of all boats but mine. This island was chosen for such a purpose, and now--"

"And now," said Annie, "if the lady is afflicted with such hardness of heart, is it not cruel to take her away from G.o.d's word and wors.h.i.+p, just when there is a minister coming? Oh, Macdonald! what would you do to one who should carry away your poor sick little Malcolm to Saint Kilda, just when your watching eye caught sight of an eastward sail, and you knew it was the physician coming; sent, moreover, for Malcolm's sake? What would you think then, Macdonald?"

"I should think that if Sir Alexander was in it there could be nothing done, and there ought to be nothing said. And Sir Alexander is in this, so I must go."

While Macdonald and his people were beating about among the caves, as morning drew on, Lady Ca.r.s.e and Rollo slipped up to the house, partly to secure a few more comforts that they had a mind for, and partly to obtain a wide view over the sea, and a certainty whether any boats were in sight.

"Have you brought up my oil can, Rollo?" asked his mother. "If not, you must go for it, and never again touch it without my leave."

"I took it," said Lady Ca.r.s.e; "and I cannot spare it."

"It cannot be spared from this room, my lady. It never left this room before but by my order, and it never must again."

"It shall never leave the place where it now is," declared Lady Ca.r.s.e, reddening. "I threw myself on your hospitality, and you grudge me light in the night. You, who are housed in a cottage of your own, with a fire, and everything comfortable about you--that is, every comfort that a poor woman like you knows how to value. You think yourself very religious, I am aware, and I rather believe you think yourself charitable, too; and you grudge me your oil can, when there is no one thing on earth you can do for me but lend it."

"Your way of thinking is natural, my lady, till you better know me and my duty. But to-day I must say that the oil can is mine, and I cannot lend it. You will please desire Rollo to bring it to me."

"I know well enough about you and your duty, as you call it. I know your particularity about a fancy of your own. I know well enough how obstinate you are about it, and how selfish, that you would sacrifice me to your whim about your duty, and your husband, and all that set of notions. And I know more. I know what it is to have a husband, and that you ought to be thankful that yours was gone before he could play the tyrant over you. You pretend to speak with authority because this cottage is yours, and your precious oil can, and your rotten old bedstead. But, besides that, I can teach you many things. You may be a.s.sured I can pay you for more oil than I shall burn to the end of my days, and for more sleeps than I hope ever to have on your old bed. You need not fear but that I shall pay for everything--pay more money than you ever saw in your life."

"Money will not do, madam. I must have my oil can. Rollo will fetch it. And you will lie down, my lady--lie down and rest on my old bed, without thinking of money, or of anything but ease to your head and your weary heart. Lie down in safety here, madam, for your head and your heart are aching sadly."

"What do you know about my head and heart aching?"

"By more signs than one. When anyone is hunted like the deer upon the hills--"

Lady Ca.r.s.e groaned.

"That is only for a while, however," said Annie, tenderly. "When there is peace of mind, there is no one to hunt us--no one to hurt us. We abide here or anywhere; for the shadow of the Almighty is everywhere.

No one can hunt us from it, nor hurt us within it. And I a.s.sure you, my lady, this is the place of all places for peace of mind."

"I hurt you just now, however," said the lady; "and I left you little peace of mind last night."

"If so, it must be my own fault," said Annie, cheerfully. "But never mind that. I never have any troubles now hardly; and you, madam, have so many, and such sad ones."

"That is true," said Lady Ca.r.s.e, as burning tears forced their way.

"You never knew--you cannot conceive--such misery as mine."

Annie kissed the hand which was wet with those scalding tears, and laid her own hand on the head which was shaken on the pillow with sobs.

After a time, the lady murmured out, "This seems very childish: but it is so long--so long since anyone--since I met with any tenderness--any affection from anyone!"

"Is that it?" said the widow, cheerfully. "Well--this is a poor place enough; and we are no companions for anybody beyond ourselves: but what you speak of is ours to give. That you may always depend on here."

"In spite of anything I may say or do? You see how hasty I am at times.

Will you love me and caress me, through anything I may say or do?"

"No doubt," replied Annie, smiling. "It will be the happiest way if you constrain us to love and cherish you as your due. But if not, these are charities that G.o.d has put into every hand that is reached out to Him, that the very humblest and poorest may have the best of alms to give."

"Alms!" sighed the lady. She shook off the kind hand that was upon her aching brow, for the thought struck upon her heart that she was a dest.i.tute beggar for those smallest offices of kindness and courtesy which she had not affections or temper to reciprocate or claim.

CHAPTER NINE.

THE COVE.

Rollo brought word that Macdonald and his people had left the eastern caves, and were now exploring the large northern one called Asdrafil.

It was time the lady was returning to her hiding place.

"O dear!" exclaimed she. "May I not rest under a roof for one night?

Will Macdonald come here again so soon?"