Christine: A Fife Fisher Girl Part 41

"Finlay knows my size and measure, exactly."

"Vera well, then go to Finlay."

"How can I go through the town, or even the village, in this dress?

You will hae to go for me."

"I will go to the Domine. It is impossible for me to go and buy a man's full suit at Finlay's. He is a great talker. He wad want to ken why and wherefore I was buying a man's suit--you ought to think o'

this, Neil. I'll ask Norman to go."

"Norman will hae to tell that silly fool he married."

"Then I had better go to the Domine. He willna cheep o' the matter to anyone. Keep the doors bolted while I am awa', and go to your own old room. It is a' ready for you."

Only half satisfied with these arrangements, he went fretfully to bed, and Christine went as quickly as she could to the manse. The Domine listened to her story with an air of annoyance. "I know Neil's story,"

he said, "and he has told it as far as his telling goes, as truthfully as I expected. I am not so sure about his need of money, the clothing is different. I will send over what is necessary, and call in the afternoon and see him."

"Dinna be cross wi' the lad, Sir. He is sair broken down," and suddenly Christine covered her face and began to cry with almost a child's complete surrender to circ.u.mstances. The Domine soothed her as he would have soothed a child, and she said, "Forgie me, Sir, I had to give way. It is a' by now. I'm not a crying woman, you know that, Sir."

"I do, and I am the more angry at those who compel you to seek the relief of tears. But I'll be as patient as I can with Neil, for your sake, and for his father's and mother's sake."

So Christine returned and Neil was difficult to awaken, but he heard her finally, and opened the door, in a half-asleep condition. "So the Domine refused you?" he said--"I thought he would."

"He did not refuse me. He will send, or bring, what you need, later."

"You should hae brought them with you, Christine. I dislike to be seen in these disreputable rags. You should hae thought o' that."

"I should, but I didna."

Then she cooked dinner, and he sat beside her, and told, and retold the wrongs and sufferings he had innocently endured. It was all Reginald Rath he blamed, and he would not admit that his behavior had been in any way provocative of it. "He was furious because I married his sister, and naturally took the management of her money into my own hands."

"Where are the Raths now?"

"I do not know. Somewhere in California, I suspect."

"Why?"

"My wife has a good deal of real estate there. It was of little value when deeded to her. Its worth has increased enormously. Rath hated the idea of it belonging to me."

"Neil, how does Roberta feel toward you?"

"She was angry as he was at first--but she loved me."

"Why do you not go to her?"

"I do not know where she is."

"Why not go to California?"

"I have not money enough. Whatever set you to writing books, Christine?"

"How do you know I have been writing books?"

"I saw a review of a book by Christine Ruleson. It praised the bit novel a good deal--Did you get much for it?"

"They paid me vera weel."

"How much?"

She hesitated a moment, and then said, "Three hundred and fifty pounds."

"That is a deal of money for a book--I mean a storybook, like a novel.

I did not know writing novels paid so well, or I would have chosen it, in place of the law."

"The Domine thinks writing as a profession must choose you, that you cannot choose it."

"The Domine does not know everything. Have the men who bought it paid you yet?"

"The publishers? Yes, they paid upon acceptance."

"How did you learn to write?"

"I never learned. I just wanted to write, and I wrote--something in me wrote. My writing is neither here nor there. Go to your old room, and lie down and sleep. The Domine may think it best for you to go somewhere at once."

So Neil went to his room but he could not sleep, and about four o'clock the Domine called for him. They met very coldly. The Domine had long ago lost all interest in him as a scholar, and he resented the way in which Neil had quietly shuffled off his family, as soon as he supposed he had socially outgrown them. The young man was terribly humiliated by the necessity of appearing in his dirty, beggarly raiment, and the Domine looked at him with a pitying dislike. The physical uncleanliness of Neil was repellent to the spotless purity which was a strong note in the minister's personality. However, he thought of the father and mother of Neil, and the look of aching entreaty in poor Christine's face quite conquered his revulsion, and he said, not unkindly, "I am sorry to see you in such a sad case, Neil. You will find all you need in that parcel; go and dress yourself, and then I shall be waiting for you." He then turned quickly to Christine, and Neil found himself unable to offer any excuse for his appearance.

"Poor Neil!" sighed Christine.

"Yes, indeed, poor Neil," answered the Domine. "What can man do for a fellow creature, who is incapable of being true, and hardly capable of being false?"

"I advised him to go to his wife. He says she loved him once, but turned against him at her brother's request."

"She did, and a wife who cries out has everyone's sympathy."

"She will forgive him--if she loved him."

"She may, I have known women to go on loving and trusting a man found out in fraud--only a woman could do that."

"A man----"

"No!"

"Oh, Domine, for father's sake--you loved father--for his sake, be kind to poor, dispairing Neil."

"Yes, child, 'despairing'--that is, because he knows he is wrong, and is not sorry for his fault. A good man in the presence of any misfortune stands up, feels exalted, and stretches out his arms to the Great Friendship--he never drifts like a dismasted ship."

Here Neil entered the room again, looking very respectable in the new tweed suit which the Domine had brought him. "Does it fit you, Neil?"

he asked.