Alec Forbes of Howglen Part 92

"Na, na; it's nae Sawtan. It's mysel'. I wadna lay mair wyte (blame) upo' Sawtan's shouthers nor's his ain. He has eneuch already, puir fallow!"

"Ye'll be o' auld Robbie Burns's opinion, that he 'aiblins micht still hae a stake.'"

"Na, na; he has nane. Burns was nae prophet."

"But jist suppose, Thomas?-gin the de'il war to repent."

"Man!" exclaimed the stonemason, rising to his full height with slow labour after the day's toil, "it wad be cruel to gar _him_ repent. It wad be ower sair upon him. Better kill him. The bitterness o' sic repentance wad be ower terrible. It wad be mair nor he cud bide. It wad brak his hert a'thegither.?-Na, na, he has nae chance."

The last sentence was spoken quickly and with attempted carelessness as he resumed his seat.

"Hoo ken ye that?" asked Cupples.

"There's no sic word i' the Scriptur'."

"Do ye think He maun tell _us_ a' thing?"

"We hae nae richt to think onything that He doesna tell's."

"I'm nae sae sure o' that, Thomas. Maybe, whiles, he doesna tell's a thing jist to gar's think aboot it, and be ready for the time whan he will tell's."

Thomas was silent for a few moments. Then with a smile-?rather a grim one?-he said,

"Here's a curious thing, no.?-There's neyther o' you convert.i.t, and yet yer words strenthen my hert as gin they cam frae the airt (region) aboon."

But his countenance changed, and he added hastily,

"It's a mark o' indwellin' sin. To the law and to the testimony?-Gang awa' and lat me to my prayers."

They obeyed; for either they felt that nothing but his prayers would do, or they were awed, and dared not remain.

Mr Cupples could wait. Thomas could not.

The Forlorn Hope of men must storm the walls of Heaven.

Amongst those who sit down at the gate till one shall come and open it, are to be found both the wise and the careless children.

CHAPTER Lx.x.xIX.

Mr Cupples returned to his work, for the catalogue had to be printed.

The weeks and months pa.s.sed on, and the time drew nigh when it would be no folly to watch the mail-coach in its pride of scarlet and gold, as possibly bearing the welcome letter announcing Alec's return. At length, one morning, Mrs Forbes said:

"We may look for him every day now, Annie."

She did not know with what a tender echo her words went roaming about in Annie's bosom, awaking a thousand thought-birds in the twilight land of memory, which had tucked their heads under their wings to sleep, and thereby to live.

But the days went on and the hope was deferred. The rush of the _Sea-horse_ did not trouble the sands of the shallow bar, or sweep, with fiercely ramping figure-head, past the long pier-spike, stretching like the hand of welcome from the hospitable sh.o.r.e. While they fancied her full-breasted sails, swelled as with sighs for home, bowing lordly over the submissive waters, the _Sea-horse_ lay a frozen ma.s.s, changed by the might of the winds and the snow and the frost into the grotesque ice-gaunt phantom of a ship, through which, the winter long, the winds would go whistling and raving, crowding upon it the snow and the crystal icicles, all in the wild waste of the desert north, with no ear to hear the sadness, and no eye to behold the deathly beauty.

At length the hope deferred began to make the heart sick. Dim anxiety pa.s.sed into vague fear, and then deepened into dull conviction, over which ever and anon flickered a pale ghostly hope, like the _fatuus_ over the swamp that has swallowed the unwary wanderer. Each would find the other wistfully watching to read any thought that might have escaped the vigilance of its keeper, and come up from the dungeon of the heart to air itself on the terraces of the face; and each would drop the glance hurriedly, as if caught in a fault. But the moment came when their meeting eyes were fixed and they burst into tears, each accepting the other's confession of hopeless grief as the seal and doom.

I will not follow them through the slow shadows of gathering fate. I will not record the fancies that tormented them, or describe the blank that fell upon the duties of the day. I will not tell how, as the winter drew on, they heard his voice calling in the storm for help, or how through the snow-drifts they saw him plodding wearily home. His mother forgot her debt, and ceased to care what became of herself.

Annie's anxiety settled into an earnest prayer that she might not rebel against the will of G.o.d.

But the anxiety of Thomas Crann was not limited to the earthly fate of the lad. It extended to his fate in the other world?-too probably, in his eyes, that endless, yearless, undivided fate, wherein the breath still breathed into the soul of man by his Maker is no longer the breath of life, but the breath of infinite death?-

Sole Positive of Night, Antipathist of Light,

giving to the ideal darkness a real and individual hypostasis in helpless humanity, keeping men alive that the light in them may continue to be darkness.

Terrible were his agonies in wrestling with G.o.d for the life of the lad, and terrible his fear lest his own faith should fail him if his prayers should not be heard. Alec Forbes was to Thomas Crann as it were the representative of all his unsaved brothers and sisters of the human race, for whose sakes he, like the apostle Paul, would have gladly undergone what he dreaded for them. He went to see his mother; said "Hoo are ye, mem?" sat down; never opened his lips, except to utter a few commonplaces; rose and left her?-a little comforted. Nor can anything but human sympathy alleviate the pain while it obscures not the presence of human grief. Do not remind me that the divine is better. I know it. But why?-?Because the divine is the highest?-the creative human. The sympathy of the Lord himself is the more human that it is divine.

And in Annie's face, as she ministered to her friend, shone, notwithstanding her full share in the sorrow, a light that came not from sun or stars?-as it were a suppressed, waiting light. And Mrs Forbes felt the holy influences that proceeded both from her and from Thomas Crann.

How much easier it is to bear a trouble that comes upon a trouble than one that intrudes a death's head into the midst of a merry-making! Mrs Forbes scarcely felt it a trouble when she received a note from Robert Bruce informing her that, as he was on the point of removing to another place which offered great advantages for the employment of the little money he possessed, he would be obliged to her to pay as soon as possible the hundred pounds she owed him, along with certain arrears of interest specified. She wrote that it was impossible for her at present, and forgot the whole affair. But within three days she received a formal application for the debt from a new solicitor. To this she paid no attention, just wondering what would come next. After about three months a second application was made, according to legal form; and in the month of May a third arrived, with the hint from the lawyer that his client was now prepared to proceed to extremities; whereupon she felt for the first time that she must do something.

She sent for James Dow.

"Are you going to the market to-day, James?" she asked.

"'Deed am I, mem."

"Well, be sure and go into one of the tents, and have a good dinner."

"'Deed, mem, I'll do naething o' the sort. It's a sin and a shame to waste gude siller upo' broth an' beef. I'll jist pit a piece (of oatcake) in my pooch, and that'll fess me hame as well's a' their kail. I can bide onything but wastrie."

"It's very foolish of you, James."

"It's yer pleesur to say sae, mem."

"Well, tell me what to do about that."

And she handed him the letter.

James took it and read it slowly. Then he stared at his mistress. Then he read it again. At length, with a bewildered look, he said,

"Gin ye awe the siller, ye maun pay't, mem."

"But I can't."

"The Lord preserve's! What's to be dune? _I_ hae bit thirty poun'

hained (saved) up i' my kist. That wadna gang far."