Morag Part 21

You have been very ill, but the doctor thinks you are much better now; and when spring days come, my little Blanche will blossom again with the flowers."

"No, papa dear; I don't really think I am better. I shall never get well again, I know. But, as I lay here, I was thinking how sad it seemed to go away from the world without having been of any use to anybody. And just lately, too, I have seemed to understand better what life was meant for, and to be interested in things I used not to care about. Do you know why I was so anxious to make the dress for the poor lame fairy, papa? I think I should like to tell you," and some of her old brightness returned as she told the story of her visit to the poor child in the comfortless abode. "She was so sad and poor that I felt sure she would be glad to hear about the Lord Jesus Christ. Wouldn't you have thought so, papa? But she did not seem to care, nor to believe that He loved her at all. At last she said that if He were to send her a new dress and boots, she might believe He was good and kind. But I am afraid I was not able to make her understand about the Lord Jesus Christ. I wonder how I can best tell her about Him, papa? if I am able to go to see her again before"--and Blanche's voice faltered.

"My own darling! you must not speak so! You must try to get well, for my sake, Blanchie. What should papa do without his little girl? And I am afraid I do not know the Lord Jesus Christ really any more than the poor pantomime fairy! You must stay with me, my child, and we will seek Him together!"

"Dearest papa, He does teach people so wonderfully; I am sure He will teach you to know and love Him. But I thought you must surely have loved the Lord Jesus Christ ever so long ago," said Blanche, musingly, and then she lay silent for several minutes.

Presently she turned to her father, with a face full of love and pity, and laying her thin fluttering fingers on his arms, she said, "Papa, dear, you will take Him for your friend now, will you not?--and He will come and be very near you when I am far away. Kirsty says He was such a friend to her when she was left sad and lonely in her cottage"--and with the mention of Kirsty's name there came a rush of memories that made Blanche's eyes fill with tears.

Her father noticed it, and a pang of jealousy shot through his heart.

She had spoken such sad words, calm and tearless; and it seemed hard that the thought of those peasant friends, whom she might see no more on earth, should be a sharper sorrow to the child's heart than the parting from himself.

And so far he judged truly. Blanche loved her father dearly, but she did not guess how great was his love for her, nor how shadowed his life would be if she were gone.

As she gazed at the bowed head beside her, Blanche realized for the first time how great and terrible the coming sorrow was to her father, and she began to understand how true it is that in the partings of life "theirs is the bitterness who stay behind."

The exertion of talking seemed to have been too much for the fragile frame. Presently a violent fit of coughing came on, and again that terrible crimson flow streamed from the white lips and on the deathly face!

The winter storm had now set in, and the weather was cold and dark and cheerless; but the interior of Blanche's room looked warm and bright as Mr. Clifford walked into it, on his return from his lonely ride.

On the floor there lay strewed the Christmas gifts for Glen Eagle, and from her sofa Blanche was having an inspection of them before they were sent away. Ellis was doing duty as show-woman; and Blanche's old gleeful laugh, which had become a rare sound now, was heard occasionally as she listened to her maid's remarks concerning the various beautiful presents, as she held them up for inspection.

Welcoming her papa with the old bright smile, Blanche beckoned him to come and see the nice fur footstool which Miss Prosser had that morning bought for Kirsty's cottage.

Mr. Clifford looked very sad as he came forward and took his place by his daughter's couch. He could not help contrasting the pale fragile form lying there, with the ringing childish laugh, which caused him almost to forget, for the moment, the sad reality which these weeks had brought.

Blanche's quick eye always detected her father's sadness, and she used to try to chase it away by all the loving wiles which she could devise.

To the others round her she often talked of dying; but, since the time that she saw her father's distress when the subject was approached, she never had the courage to introduce it again, though there were many things she wanted to say to him.

She kept watching Ellis with wistful eyes as she gathered and carried away from her room the scattered gifts for the peasant friends she loved so well.

After they were all cleared away, she lay quietly back on the sofa, and there was a far-away look in her eyes that made her father unwilling to ask where her thoughts were. Presently she turned to him, and said in a low, nervous tone, "Papa, I want to ask you something. May I do exactly as I like with all my own things?"

"Certainly, darling. What treasure do you wish to send to the little Morag? But I thought Ellis was doubtful if she could stow all the things you have already sent,--eh, Blanchie?"

"Oh, I did not mean in the box, papa! But you know it cannot be very long now before I have to leave you--and everything," and Blanche's fluttering fingers, so wan and wasted now, played nervously with her father's hand as she spoke.

"Of course you will keep everything you want--and Miss Prosser and Ellis will, too. But I should like Morag to have some of my things when I am gone. She has so few pretty things in the hut; and besides, I really do think she would like to have them, just because they are mine, and they will remind her of me when I'm far away;" and Blanche glanced round the room at the pretty statuettes and pictures, and the rows of nicely-bound books, of which she used to tell Morag, as they rambled among the woods and braes of Glen Eagle.

"Yes, my darling; Morag shall have whatever you like," replied Mr.

Clifford with an effort, as soon as he was able to speak; and presently he continued: "My child, perhaps I should tell you that you have a great deal more to give away than your books and pictures. You are what people call an heiress, Blanchie. Your mother left you a large fortune, and, besides, you will have all that belongs to me. Ah, my child! will you not live?--I cannot let you go! There is such a bright future in store for you--so many hopes bound up in this dear life!"

"Yes, papa, dear; the future _is_ bright," replied Blanche, smiling. "I was reading about it only this morning--'an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away.' I learnt the words. It was strange I never remember hearing them till to-day. But I suppose G.o.d just speaks His own words to us when we need them and will listen to them. It's all right, papa, dear," she continued as she put her arm round her father's neck, as he sat with his head resting on his hand, absorbed in his own sad thoughts. "I know the Lord Jesus Christ will comfort you when I am gone. And then, you know, papa dear, you will not be so very long in coming, and I shall be waiting for you, oh! so eagerly, and we shall be so happy together in the home of G.o.d!"

"Is it not rather difficult for rich people to be good, papa?" asked Blanche, after she had laid pondering a short time. "If I had lived, perhaps I might have grown into a grand lady--like some of Ellis's mistresses that she tells me about--and got selfish and bad when I grew old. But now, papa, dear, I shall always be your own foolish little Blanchie," and she nestled in her father's arm, as he stroked the long fair curls--the last symbol of health that remained.

After she had again laid musing for some time, Blanche sat up, and with some of her old eagerness she said--

"Papa, I've just been thinking that Morag is so gentle, and so clever, and so fond of books, that I'm sure she would grow up very learned if she were educated. I know she would like lessons a great deal more than I used to do, and be much more diligent. Have I enough money to educate Morag, papa?"

"Yes, darling, quite enough; and if you wish it, it shall be done,"

replied Mr. Clifford huskily, for this conversation was almost too painful for him to continue.

"But after all, papa, very clever people, who know everything, are not always very happy or good--are they? And, besides, I really do not see how her father and Kirsty could get on without Morag. And then she is so faithful and loving--perhaps she could never be persuaded to leave them, to be made a lady of in the world beyond her mountains," said Blanche, smiling, as the image of her shy little mountain friend rose before her.

"No, papa, dear," she said presently, after thinking quietly for a little; "I really think we must give up that idea after all. I do believe the Lord Jesus Christ would like best that Morag should stay in the Glen and make her father and Kirsty comfortable and happy as they get older. But I'll tell you what we might do, papa, dear. Would there be enough money to build a nice new house for Morag and her father? That hut among the crags must tumble to pieces one day before long, I should think, though certainly Morag does make it look as nice as possible,"

added Blanche, pathetically, for she remembered well the morning on which she saw it last.

Her father listened with a sad interest as Blanche told the story of that day's troubles, and how sorry she had been to leave Glen Eagle without taking farewell of her mountain friend. And as she told how she had hurried up the hill to the little shieling among the crags, only to find it empty, and glowingly described the pleasant interior into which her friend had transformed the once wretched hut, the scene seemed to come vividly to her memory, and to bring with it an intense desire for life, as she lay on the borders of the far-off land!

Some hot tears stole down her cheeks, and with quivering lip and clasped hands she gazed wistfully into her father's face as she said--

"O papa! if I could only walk one afternoon with Morag in the fir-wood, I almost think I should feel well again!"

XVII.

_MORAG'S JOURNEY INTO THE WORLD BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS._

IT was a wild night at Stratheagle. An eddying wind had been blowing the deep snow into wreaths, and fresh falling flakes were whirling about in all directions through the darkness.

All trace of the road through the mountain pa.s.s had disappeared; and it would have fared ill with the Honorable Mr. Clifford's slim English footman, with his elegant calves, as he made his way towards the keeper's shieling among the crags, if he had not taken the precaution of securing a guide from the village below.

The steep ascent to the hut was almost impa.s.sable, and more than once the man seemed disposed to give it up and beat a retreat to his quarters at the village without fulfilling his mission. But his more stalwart companion cheered him on, a.s.suring him at intervals that it was only a "mile and a bittock," and pointed to the light in the window of the hut long before it shed any encouraging ray on the exhausted flunkey, who went stumbling and grumbling up the hill through the blinding drift, feeling himself the most ill-used of persons to have been sent to such regions in such weather.

The light from the window of the hut was at last really visible, shimmering through the darkness, and soon the benighted travellers stood under the snowy crags which towered above the little shieling.

Our old friend Morag was, meanwhile, comfortably seated in the ingle-neuk, reading laboriously from one of her ancient yellow-leaved volumes, little dreaming what was in store for her to-night. Her father sat near her smoking his evening pipe, but he was not staring into the fire in idleness and grim silence as of old. He seemed at the present moment quite absorbed in a newspaper, the date of which was uncertain, seeing it had been torn off when it was used for lining a packing-case of game during autumn. But though it was not a "day's paper," it seemed to satisfy the keeper's literary cravings, and he had carefully perused it from beginning to end by the light of the fire of peat and pine, which blazed brightly on the hearth.

The snow made a warm covering round the wall, and a secure white thatch on the porous roof, so it happened that to-night the hut was really a more comfortable abode than it had often proved during autumn-days.

Morag jumped to her feet when she heard the sound of voices and the loud knocking; and now she stood gazing at her father with a look of startled surprise.

Laying down his pipe, the keeper prepared to open the door, but before he had time to do so, the injured footman stood in the middle of the floor, stamping the snow from his feet, and inspecting his precious person generally, as he muttered expressions of indignation concerning this unpleasant piece of service which had fallen to his lot.

Morag recognized the visitor at once, and forgetting her shyness, she sprang forward, saying, in low, eager tones, "Will ye no be frae the wee leddy o' the castle? I'm thinkin' there maun be something wrang. Is she no weel?"

"Miss Clifford, I presume you mean, little girl. Well, you are right, so far. I come from her father--my master, the Honorable Mr. Clifford. I think I've got a letter for you; but 'pon my word it's been at the risk of my life bringin' it here. S'pose I'd better read it myself?" said he, looking round patronizingly at the keeper.

And without waiting for a reply, he tore open the closed envelope, amid the smouldering indignation of the keeper, to whom it was evidently addressed, and began to read as follows:--

"Will Morag come to London immediately to see her little friend Blanche, who is very ill and wants to see her? The Keeper may safely trust his daughter to the servant, who has got all directions how to proceed.

ARTHUR CLIFFORD."