An Orkney Maid Part 29

"I could not speak, but my soul longed to know what he was doing and the longing was immediately answered. 'I am doing the will of the Lord of Hosts,' he said. 'I was needed here.' Then I felt his kiss on my cheek, and I lifted my head and looked at the clock. It had struck three just as I was conscious of the presence of Boris. It was only two minutes past three, but I seemed to have lived hours in that two minutes."

"Do you think, Bishop, that G.o.d loves a soldier? He may employ them and yet not love them?"

Then the Bishop straightened himself and lifted his head, and his face glowed and his eyes shone as he answered, "I will give you one example, it could be multiplied indefinitely. Paul of Tarsus, a pale, beardless young man, dressed as a Roman soldier, is bringing prisoners to Damascus. Christ meets him on the road and Paul knows instantly that he has met the Captain of his soul. Hence forward, he is beloved and honoured and employed for Christ, and at the end of life he is joyful because he has fought a good fight and knows that his reward is waiting for him.

"G.o.d has given us the names of many soldiers beloved of Him--Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David, etc. What care he took of them! What a friend in all extremities he was to them! All men who fight for their Faith, Home and Country, for Freedom, Justice and Liberty, are G.o.d's armed servants. They do His will on the battlefield, as priests do it at the altar. So then,

"In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of life, Be not like dumb driven cattle, Be a hero in the strife!"

"We were speaking of the bards going to the battlefield with the soldiers, and as I was quoting that verse of Longfellow's a few lines from the old bard we call Ossian came into my mind."

"Tell us, then," said Thora, "wilt thou not say the words to us, our dear Bishop?"

"I will do that gladly:

"Father of Heroes, high dweller of eddying winds, Where the dark, red thunder marks the troubled cloud, Open Thou thy stormy hall!

Let the bards of old be near.

Father of heroes! the people bend before thee.

Thou turnest the battle in the field of the brave, Thy terrors pour the blasts of death, Thy tempests are before thy face, But thy dwelling is calm above the clouds, The fields of thy rest are pleasant."

"When I was a young man," he continued, "I used to read Ossian a good deal. I liked its vast, shadowy images, its visionary incompleteness, just because we have not yet invented the precise words to describe the indescribable."

So they talked, until the frugal Orcadian supper of oatmeal and milk, and bread and cheese, appeared. Then the night closed and sealed what the day had done, and there was no more speculation about Ian's future. The idea of a military life as a school for the youth had sprung up strong and rapidly, and he was now waiting, almost impatiently, for it to be translated into action.

A few restful, pleasant days followed. Ragnor was preparing to leave his business for a week, the Bishop was settling some parish difficulties, and Ian and Thora were permitted to spend their time as they desired. They paid one farewell visit to their future home and found an old woman who had nursed Thora in charge of the place.

"Thou wilt find everything just so, when you two come home together, my baby," she said. "Not a pin will be out of its place, not a speck of dust on anything. Eva will always be ready, and please G.o.d you may call her far sooner than you think for."

The Sabbath, the last Sabbath of the old year, was to be their last day together, and the Bishop desired Ian to make it memorable with song. Ian was delighted to do so and together they chose for his two solos, "O for the Wings of a Dove," and the heavenly octaves of "He Hath Ascended Up on High and Led Captivity Captive." The old cathedral's great s.p.a.ces were crowded, the Bishop was grandly in the spirit, and he easily led his people to that solemn line where life verges on death and death touches Immortality. It was Christ the beginning, and the end; Christ the victim on the cross, and Christ the G.o.d of the Ascension! And he sent every one home with the promise of Immortality in their souls and the light of it on their faces. His theme had touched largely on the Christ of the Resurrection, and the mystery and beauty of this Christ was made familiar to them in a way they had not before considered.

Ragnor was afraid it had perhaps been brought too close to their own conception of a soul, who was seen on earth after the death of the body. "You told the events of Christ's forty days on earth after His crucifixion so simply, Bishop," he said, "and yet with much of the air that our people tell a ghost story."

"Well then, dear Conall, I was telling them the most sacred ghost story of the world, and yet it is the most literal reality in history.

If it were only a dream, it would be the most dynamic event in human destiny."

"You see, Bishop, there is so much in your way of preaching. It has that kind of good comradeship which I think was so remarkable in Christ. His style was not the ten commandments' style--thou shalt and thou shalt not--but that reasoning, brotherly way of 'What man is there among you that would not do the kind and right thing?' You used it this very morning when you cried out, 'If our dear England needed your help to save her Liberty and Life, what man is there among you that would not rise up like lions to save her?' And the men could hardly sit still. It was so real, so brotherly, so unlike preaching."

"Conall, nothing is so wonderful and beautiful in Christ's life as its almost incredible approachableness."

This sermon had been preached on the Sabbath morning and it spiritualized the whole day. Ian's singing also had proved a wonderful service, for when the young men of that day became old men, they could be heard leading their crews in the melodious, longing strains of 'O for the Wings of a Dove,' as they sat casting their lines into the restless water.

In the evening a cold, northwesterly wind sprang up and Thora and Ian retreated to the parlour, where a good fire had been built; but the Bishop and Ragnor and Rahal drew closer round the hearth in the living room and talked, and were silent, as their hearts moved them. Rahal had little to say. She was thinking of Ian and of the new life he was going to, and of the long, lonely days that might be the fate of Thora. "The woeful laddie!" she whispered, "he has had but small chances of any kind. What can a lad do for himself and no mother able to help him!"

The Bishop heard or divined her last words and he said, "Be content, Rahal. Not one, but many lives we hold, and our hail to every new work we begin is our farewell to the old work. Ian is going to give a Future to his Past."

"I fear, Bishop----"

"Fear is from the earthward side, Rahal. Above the clouds of Fear, there is the certain knowledge of Heaven. Fear is nothing, Faith is everything!"

CHAPTER X

THE ONE REMAINS, THE MANY CHANGE AND Pa.s.s

You Scotsmen are a pertinacious brood; Fitly you wear the thistle in your cap, As in your grim theology.

O we're not all so fierce! G.o.d knows you'll find, Well-combed and smooth-licked gentlemen enough, Who will rejoice with you To sneer at Calvin's close-wedged creed.

--BLACKIE.

Sow not in Sorrow, Fling your seed abroad, and know G.o.d sends tomorrow, The rain to make it grow.

--BLACKIE.

There are epochs in every life that cut it sharply asunder, its continuity is broken and things can never be the same again. This was the dominant feeling that came to Thora Ragnor, as she sat with her mother one afternoon in early January. It was a day of Orkney's most uncomfortable and depressing kind, the whole island being swept by drifting clouds of vapour, which not only filled the atmosphere but also the houses, so that everything was to the touch damp and uncomfortable. Nothing could escape its miserable contact, even sitting on the hearthstone its power was felt; and until a good northwester came to dissipate the damp moisture, n.o.body expected much from any one's temper.

Thora was restless and unhappy. Her life appeared to have been suddenly deprived of all joy and sunshine. She felt as if everything was at an end, or might as well be, and her mother's placid, peaceful face irritated her. How could she sit knitting m.u.f.flers for the soldiers in the trenches, and not think of Boris and also of Ian, whom they had all conspired to send to the same danger and perhaps death?

She could not understand her mother's serenity. It occurred to her this afternoon, that she might have run away with Ian to Shetland and there her sisters would have seen her married; and she did not do this, she obeyed her parents, and what did she get for it? Loneliness and misery and her lover sent far away from her. Oh, those moments when Virtue has failed to reward us and we regret having served her!

To the young, they are sometimes very bitter.

And her mother's calmness! It not only astonished, it angered her. How could she sit still and not talk of Boris and Ian? It was a necessary relief to Thora, their names were at her lips all day long. But Thora had yet to learn that it is the middle-aged and the old who have the power of hoping through everything, because they have the knowledge that the soul survives all its adventures. This is the great inspiration, it is the good wine which G.o.d keeps to the last. The old, the way-worn, the faint and weary, they know this as the young can never know it.

However, we may say to bad weather, as to all other bad things, "this, too, will pa.s.s," and in a couple of days the sky was blue, the sun shining, and the atmosphere fresh and clear and full of life-giving energy. Ships of all kinds were hastening into the harbour and the mail boat, broad-bottomed and strongly built, was in sight. Then there was a little real anxiety. There was sure to be letters, what news would they bring? Some people say there is no romance in these days.

Very far wrong are they. These sealed bits of white paper hold very often more wonderful romances than any in the Thousand Nights of story telling.

Rahal's and Thora's anxiety was soon relieved. A messenger from the warehouse came quickly to the house, with a letter from Ragnor to Rahal and a letter from Ian to Thora. Ragnor's letter said they had had a rough voyage southward, the storm being in their faces all the way to Leith. There they left the boat and took a train for London, from which place they went as quickly as possible to Spithead, fearing to miss the ship sailing for the Crimea on the eleventh. Ragnor said he had seen Ian safely away to Sebastopol and observed that he was remarkably cheerful and satisfied. He spoke then of his own delight with London and regretted that he had not made arrangements which would permit him to stay a week or two longer there.

Thora's letter was a genuine love letter, for Ian was deeply in love and everything he said was in the superlative mood. Lovers like such letters. They are to them the sacred writings. It did not seem ridiculous to Thora to be called "an angel of beauty and goodness, the rose of womanhood, the lily on his heart, his star of hope, the sunshine of his life," and many other extravagant impossibilities. She would have been disappointed if Ian had been more matter-of-fact and reasonable.

So there was now comparative happiness in the house of Ragnor, for though the master's letters were never much more than plain statements of doings or circ.u.mstances, they satisfied Rahal. It is not every man that knows how to write to a woman, even if he loves her; but women have a special divinity in reading love letters, and they know beyond all doubting the worth of words as affected by those who use them.

Ragnor gave himself a whole week in London and before leaving that city for Edinburgh he wrote a few lines home, saying he intended to stay in London over the following Sabbath and hear Canon Liddon preach. On Monday he would reach Edinburgh and on Tuesday have an interview with Dr. Macrae and then take the first boat for home. They could now wait easily, the silence had been broken, the weather was good, they had "The History of Pendennis" and "David Copperfield" to read, their little duties and little cares to attend to, and they were not at all unhappy.

At length, the master was to be home _that_ day. If the wind was favourable, he might arrive about two o'clock, but Rahal thought the boat would hardly manage it before three with the wind in her teeth, or it might be nearer four. The house was all ready for him, spick and span from roof to cellar and a dinner of the good things he particularly liked in careful preparation. And, after all, he came a little earlier than was expected.

"Dear Conall," said Rahal, "I have been watching for thee, but I thought it would be four o'clock, ere thou made Kirkwall."

"Not with Donald Farquar sailing the boat. The way he manages a boat is beyond reason."

"How is that?"

"He talks to her, as if she was human. He scolds and coaxes her and this morning he promised to paint and gild her figurehead, if she got into Kirkwall before three. Then every sailor on board helped her and the wind changed a point or two and that helped her, and now and then Farquar pushed her on, with a good or bad word, and she saved herself by just eleven minutes."

"And how well thou art looking! Never have I seen thee so handsome before, never! What hast thou been doing to Conall Ragnor?"

"I will tell thee. When I had bid Ian good-bye, I resolved to take a week's holiday in London and as I walked down the Strand, I noticed that every one looked at me, not unkindly but curiously, and when I looked at the men who looked at me, I saw we were different. I went into a barber's first, and had my hair cut like Londoners wear it, short and smart, and not thick and bushy, like mine was."

"Well then, thy hair was far too long but they have cut off all thy curls."