Foes Part 14

They left the moor, pa.s.sed through the hollow of the stream and by the mill, and began to climb the village street. Folk looked out of door or window upon them; kirk-goers astir, dressed in their best, with regulated step and mouth and eyes set aright, gave the correct greeting, neither more nor less. If the afternoon breeze, if a little runlet of water going down the street, chose to murmur: "The laird is thick with White Farm! What makes the laird so thick with White Farm?"

that was breeze or runlet's doing.

They pa.s.sed the bare, gaunt manse and came to the kirkyard with the dark, low stones over the generations dead. But the gra.s.s was vivid, and the daisies bloomed, and even the yew-trees had some kind of peac.o.c.k sheen, while the sky overhead burnt essential sapphire. Even the white of the lark held a friendly tinge as of rose petals mixed somehow with it. And the bell that was ending its ringing, if it was solemn, was also silver-sweet. Glenfernie determined that he would go to church. He entered with the White Farm folk and he sat with them, leaving the laird's high-walled, curtained pew without human tenancy.

Mrs. Grizel came but to morning sermon. Alice was with a kinswoman of rank in a great house near Edinburgh, submitting, not without enjoyment, to certain fine filings and polishings and lacquerings and contacts. Jamie, who would be a soldier and fight the French, had his commission and was gone this past week to Carlisle, to his regiment.

English Strickland was yet at Glenfernie House. Between him and the laird held much liking and respect. Tutor no longer, he stayed on as secretary and right-hand man. But Strickland was not at church.

The white cavern, bare and chill, with small, deep windows looking out upon the hills of June, was but sparely set out with folk. Afternoon was not morning. Nor was there again the disciplinary vision of the forenoon. The sinners were not set the second time for a gazing-stock.

It was just usual afternoon kirk. The prayer was made, the psalm was sung, Mr. M'Nab preached a strong if wintry sermon. Jarvis Barrow, white-headed, strong-featured, intent, sat as in some tower over against Jerusalem, considering the foes that beset her. Beside him sat his daughter Jenny, in striped petticoat and plain overgown, blue kerchief, and hat of straw. Next to Jenny was Elspeth in a dim-green stuff, thin, besprent with small flowers, a fine white kerchief, and a wider straw hat. Robin Greenlaw sat beside Elspeth, and the laird by Greenlaw. Half the congregation thought with variations:

"Wha ever heard of the laird's not being in his ain place? He and White Farm and Littlefarm maun be well acquaint'! He's foreign, amaist, and gangs his ain gait!"

Glenfernie, who had broken the conventions, sat in a profound carelessness of that. The kirk was not gray to him to-day, though he had thought it so on other days, nor bare, nor chill. June was without, but June was more within. He also prayed, though his unuttered words ran in and out between the minister's uttered ones.

Under the wintry sermon he built a dream and it glowed like jewels. At the psalm, standing, he heard Elspeth's clear voice praising G.o.d, and his heart lifted on that beam of song until it was as though it came to Heaven.

"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place In generations all.

Before thou ever hadst brought forth The mountains great or small, Ere ever thou hadst formed the earth And all the world abroad, Ev'n thou from everlasting art To everlasting G.o.d."

"Love, love, love!" cried Glenfernie's heart. His nature did with might what its hand found to do, and now, having turned to love between man and woman, it loved with a huge, deep, pulsing, world-old strength. He heard Elspeth, he felt Elspeth only; he but wished to blend with her and go on with her forever from the heaven to heaven which, blended so, they would make.

"... As with an overflowing flood Thou carriest them away; They like a sleep are, like the gra.s.s That grows at morn are they.

At morn it flourishes and grows, Cut down at ev'n doth fade--"

"Not gra.s.s of the field, O Lord," cried Glenfernie's heart, "but the forest of oaks, but the stars that hold for aye, one to the other--"

CHAPTER XI

The glen was dressed in June, at its height of green movement and song. Alexander and Elspeth walked there and turned aside through a miniature pa.s.s down which flowed a stream in miniature to join the larger flood. This cleft led them to a green hollow masked by the main wall of the glen, a fairy place, hidden and lone. Seven times had the two been in company since that morning of the flower-sprinkled cape and the thorn-tree. First stood a chance meeting upon the moor, Elspeth walking from the village with a basket upon her arm and the laird riding home after business in the nearest considerable town. He dismounted; he walked beside her to the stepping-stones before the farm. The second time he went to White Farm, and she and Jenny, with Merran to help, were laying linen to bleach upon the sun-washed hillside. He had stayed an hour, and though he was not alone with her, yet he might look at her, listen to her. She was not a chatterer; she worked or stood, almost as silent as a master painter's subtle picture stepped out of its frame, or as Pygmalion's statue-maid, flushing with life, but as yet tongue-holden. Yet she said certain things, and they were to him all music and wit. The third time had been by the wishing-green. That was but for a moment, but he counted it great gain.

"Here," she said, "was where we danced! Mr. Ian Rullock and you and Robin and the rest of us. Don't you remember? It was evening and there was a fleet of gold clouds in the sky. It is so near the house. I walk here when I have a glint of time."

The fourth time, riding Black Alan, he had stopped at the door and talked with Jarvis Barrow. He was thirsty and had asked for water, and Jenny had called, "Elspeth, bring the laird a cup frae the well!" She had brought it, and, taking it from her, all the romance of the world had seemed to him to close them round, to bear them to some great and fair and deep and pa.s.sionate place. The fifth time had been the day when he went to kirk with White Farm and listened to her voice in the psalm. The sixth time had been again upon the moor. The seventh time was this. He had come down through the glen as he had done before. He had no reason to suppose that this day more than another he would find her, but there, half a mile from White Farm, he came upon her, standing, watching a lintwhite's nest. They walked together, and when that little, right-angled, infant fellow of the glen opened to them they turned and followed its bright rivulet to the green hidden hollow.

The earth lay warm and dry, clad with short turf. They sat down beneath an oak-tree. None would come this way; they had to themselves a bright span of time and place. Elspeth looked at him with brown, friendly eyes. Each time she met him her eyes grew more kind; more and more she liked the laird. Something fluttered in her nature; like a bird in a room with many windows and all but one closed, it turned now this way, now that, seeking the open lattice. There was the lovely world--which way to it? And the window that in a dream had seemed to her to open was mayhap closed, and another that she had not noted mayhap opening.... But Glenfernie, winged, was in that world, and now all that he desired was that the bright bird should fly to him there.

But until to-day patience and caution and much humility had kept him from direct speech. He knew that she had not loved, as he had done, at once. He had set himself to win her to love him. But so great was his pa.s.sion that now he thought:

"Surely not one, but two as one, make this terrible and happy furnace!" He thought, "I will speak now," and then delayed over the words.

"This is a bonny, wee place!" said Elspeth. "Did you never hear the old folks tell that your great-grandmother, that was among the persecuted, loved it? When your father was a laddie they often used to sit here, the two of them. They were great wanderers together."

"I never heard it," said Alexander. "Almost it seems too bright...."

They sat in silence, but the train of thought started went on with Glenfernie:

"But perhaps she never went so far as the Kelpie's Pool."

"The Kelpie's Pool!... I do not like that place! Tell me, Glenfernie, wonders of travel."

"What shall I tell you?"

"Tell me of the East. Tell me what like is the Sea of Galilee."

Glenfernie talked, since Elspeth bade him talk. He talked of what he had seen and known, and that brought him, with the aid of questions from the woman listening, to talk of himself. "I had a strange kind of youth.... So many dim, struggling longings, dreams, aspirings!--but I think they may be always there with youth."

"Yes, they are," said Elspeth.

"We talked of the Kelpie's Pool. Something like that was the strangeness with me. Black rifts and whirlpools and dead tarns within me, opening up now and again, lifted as by a trembling of the earth, coming up from the past! Angers and broodings, and things seen in flashes--then all gone as the lightning goes, and the mind does not hold what was shown.... I became a man and it ceased. Sometimes I know that in sleep or dream I have been beside a kelpie pool. But I think the better part of me has drained them where they lay under open sky."

He laughed, put his hands over his face for a moment, then, dropping them, whistled to the blackbirds aloft in the oak-tree.

"And now?"

"Now there is clean fire in me!" He turned to her; he drew himself nearer over the sward. "Elspeth, Elspeth, Elspeth! do not tell me that you do not know that I love you!"

"Love me--love me?" answered Elspeth. She rose from her earthen chair; she moved as if to leave the place; then she stood still. "Perhaps a part of me knew and a part did not know.... I will try to be honest, for you are honest, Glenfernie! Yes, I knew, but I would not let myself perceive and think and say that I knew.... And now what will I say?"

"Say that you love me! Say that you love and will marry me!"

"I like you and I trust you, but I feel no more, Glenfernie, I feel no more!"

"It may grow, Elspeth--"

Elspeth moved to the stem of the oak beneath which they had been seated. She raised her arm and rested it against the bark, then laid her forehead upon the warm molded flesh in the blue print sleeve. For some moments she stayed so, with hidden face, unmoving against the bole of the tree, like a relief done of old by some wonderful artist.

The laird of Glenfernie, watching her, felt, such was his pa.s.sion, the whole of earth and sky, the whole of time, draw to just this point, hang on just her movement and her word.

"Elspeth!" he cried at last. "Elspeth!"

Elspeth turned, but she stood yet against the tree. Now both arms were lifted; she had for a moment the appearance of one who hung upon the tree. Her eyes were wet, tears were upon her cheek. She shook them off, then left the oak and came a step or two toward him. "There is something in my brain and heart that tells me what love is. When I love I shall love hard.... I have had fancies.... But, like yours, Glenfernie, their times are outgrown and gone by.... It's clear to try. I like you so much! but I do not love now--and I'll not wed and come to Glenfernie House until I do."

"'It's clear to try,' you said."

Elspeth looked at him long. "If it is there, even little and far away, I'll try to bend my steps the way shall bring it nearer. But, oh, Glenfernie, it may be that there is naught upon the road!"

"Will you journey to look for it? That's all I ask now. Will you journey to look for it?"

"Yes, I may promise that. And I do not know," said Elspeth, wonderingly, "what keeps me from thinking I'll meet it." She sat down among the oak roots. "Let us rest a bit, and say no word, and then go home."

The sunlight filled the hollow, the wimpling burn took the blue of the sky, the breeze whispered among the oak leaves. The two sat and gazed at the day, at the gra.s.s, at the little thorn-trees and hazels that ringed the place around. They sat very still, seeking composure. She gained it first.

"When will your sister be coming home?"

"It is not settled. Glenfernie House was sad of late years. She ought to have the life and brightness that she's getting now."

"And will you travel no more?"

He saw as in a lightning glare that she pictured no change for him beyond such as being laird would make. He was glad when the flash went and he could forget what it had of destructive and desolating. He would drag hope down from the sky above the sky of lightnings. He spoke.