Foes Part 42

A servant came to the door. "Mrs. Alison has returned, sir."

Glenfernie rose. "I will go find her then.--I will ride over often if I may."

"I wish you would!" said Black Hill. "I was sorry about that quarrel with your father."

The old laird's son walked down the matted corridor. The drawing-room door stood open; he saw one panel of the tall screen covered with paG.o.das, palms, and macaws. Further on was the room, clean and fragrant, known as Mrs. Alison's room. This door, too, was wide. He stood by his old friend. They put hands into hands; eyes met, eyes held in a long look.

She said, "O G.o.d, I praise Thee!"

They sat within the garden door, on one side the clear, still room, on the other the green and growing things, the great tree loved by birds.

The place was like a cloister. He stayed with her an hour, and in all that time there was not a great deal said with the outer tongue. But each grew more happy, deeper and stronger.

He talked to her of the Roman Campagna, of the East and the desert....

As the hour closed he spoke directly of Ian. "That is myself now, as Elspeth is myself now. I falter, I fail, but I go on to profounder Oneness."

"Christ is born, then he grows up."

"May I see Ian's last letters?"

She put them in his hands. "They are very short. They speak almost always of external things."

He read, then sat musing, his eyes upon the tree. "This last one--You answered that it was not known where I was?"

"Yes. But he says here at the last, 'I feel it somewhere that he is on his way to Scotland.'"

"I'll have to think it out."

"Every letter is objective like this. But for all that, I divine, in the dark, a ferment.... As you see, we have not heard for months."

The laird of Glenfernie rode at last from Black Hill. It was afternoon, white drifts of clouds in the sky, light and shadow moving upon field and moor and distant, framing mountains. He rode by Littlefarm and he called at the house gate for Robin Greenlaw. It seemed that the latter was away in White Farm fields. The laird might meet him riding home. A mile farther on he saw the gray horse crossing the stream.

Glenfernie and Greenlaw, meeting, left each the saddle, went near to embracing, sat at last by a stone wall in the late sunshine, and felt a tide of liking, stronger, not weaker, than that of old days.

"You are looking after White Farm?"

"Yes. The old man fails. Jenny has become a cripple. Gilian and I are the rulers."

"Or servers?"

"It amounts to the same.... Gilian has a splendid soul."

"The poems, Robin. Do you make them yet?"

"Oh yes! Now and then. All this helps.... And you, Glenfernie, I could make a poem of you!"

The laird laughed. "I suppose you could of all men.... Gilian and you do not marry?"

"We are not the marrying kind. But I shouldn't love beauty inside if I didn't love Gilian.... I see that something big has come to you, Glenfernie, and made itself at home. You'll be wanting it taken as a matter of course, and I take it that way.... No matter what you have seen, is not this vale fair?"

"Fair as fair! Loved because of child and boy and man.... Robin, something beyond all years as we count them can be put into moments.... A moment can be as sizable as a sun."

"I believe it. We are all treading toward the land of wonders."

When he parted from Robin it was nearly sunset. He did not mean to stop to-day at White Farm, but he turned Black Alan in that direction.

He would ride by the house and the shining stream with the stepping-stones. Coming beneath the bank thick with willow and aspen, he checked the horse and sat looking at the long, low house. It held there in a sunset stillness, a sunset glory, a dream of dawn. He dismounted, left the horse, and climbed to the strip of green before the place. None seemed about, all seemed within. Here was the fir-tree with the bench around--so old a tree, watching life so long!... Now he saw that Jarvis Barrow sat here. But the old man was asleep. He sat with closed eyes, and his Bible was under his hand. Beside him, tall and fair, wide-browed, gray-eyed, stood Gilian. Her head was turned toward the fringed bank; when she saw Alexander she put her finger against her lips. He made a gesture of understanding and went no nearer. For a moment he stood regarding all, then drew back into shadow of willow and aspen, descended the bank, and, mounting Black Alan, rode home through the purple light.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

The countryside, the village--the Jardine Arms--Mrs. Macmurdo in her shop to all who entered--talked of the laird's homecoming. "He's a strange sort!"

"Some do say he's been to America and found a gold-mine."

"Na! He's just been journeying around in himself."

"I am na spekalative. He's content.i.t, and sae am I. It's a mair natural warld than ye think."

"Three year syne when he went away, he lookit like ane o' thae figures o' tragedy--"

"Aweel, then, he's swallowed himself and digested it."

"I ca' it fair miracle! The Lord touched him in the night."

"Do ye haud that he'll gang to kirk the morn?"

"I dinna precisely ken. He micht, and he micht not."

He went, entering with Mrs. Grizel, Alice, and Strickland, sitting in the House pew. How many kirks he thought of, sitting there--what cathedrals, chapels; what rude, earnest places; what temples, mosques, caves, ancient groves; what fanes; what worshiped G.o.ds! One, one!

Temple and image, worshiped and worshiper. Self helping self. "O my Self, daily and deeply help myself!"

The little white stone building--the earnest, strenuous, narrow man in the pulpit, the Scots congregation--old, old, familiar, with an inner odor not unpungent, not unliked! Life Everlasting--Everlasting Life....

"_That ye may have life and have it more abundantly._"

White Farm sat in the White Farm place. Jarvis Barrow was there. But he did not sit erect as of yore; he leaned upon his staff. Jenny was missed. Lame now, she stayed at home and watched the pa.s.sing, and talked to herself or talked to others. Gilian sat beside the old man.

Behind were Menie and Merran, Thomas and w.i.l.l.y. Glenfernie's eyes dwelt quietly upon Jarvis and his granddaughter. When he willed he could see Elspeth beside Gilian.

The prayers, the sermon, the hymns.... All through the world-body the straining toward the larger thing, the enveloping Person! As he sat there he felt blood-warmth, touch, with every foot that sought hold, with every hand that reached. He saw the backward-falling, and he saw that they did not fall forever, that they caught and held and climbed again. He saw that because he had done that, time and time again done that.

Mr. M'Nab preached a courageous, if harsh, sermon. The old words of commination! They were not empty--but in among them, fine as ether, now ran a gloss.... The sermon ended, the final psalm was sung.

"When Zion's bondage G.o.d turned back, As men that dreamed were we.

Then filled with laughter was our mouth.

Our tongue with melody--"