Olive Part 17

"In person, yes, a little; in mind--no! a thousand times no!" Then, recollecting herself, she added, "It was not likely. Mr. Gwynne has been dead so many years that my son"--it was always _my_ son--"has no remembrance of his father."

Alas! that there should be some whose memories are gladly suffered to perish with the falling of the earth above them.

A thought like this pa.s.sed through the mind of Angus Rothesay. "I fancy," said he, "that I once met Mr. Gwynne; he was"---

"My husband." Mrs. Gwynne's tone suppressed all further remark--even all recollection of the contemptible image that was intruding on her guest's mind--an image of a young, roistering, fox-hunting fool. Rothesay looked on the widow, and the remembrance pa.s.sed away, or became sacred as memory itself. And then the conversation glided as a mother's heart would fain direct it--to her only son.

"He was a strange creature ever, was my Harold. In his childhood he always teased me with his 'why and because;' he would come to the root of everything, and would not believe anything that he could not quite understand. Gradually I began to glory in this peculiarity, for I saw it argued a mind far above the common order. Angus, you are a father; you may be happy in your child, but you never can understand the pride of a mother in an only son."

While she talked, her countenance and manner brightened, and Captain Rothesay saw again, not the serene, stern widow of Owen Gwynne, but the energetic, impa.s.sioned Alison Balfour. He told her this.

"Is it so? Strange! And yet I do but talk to you as I often did when we were young together."

He begged her to continue--his heart warmed as it had not done for many a day; and, to lead the way, he asked what chance had caused the descendant of the Balfours to become an English clergyman?

"From circ.u.mstances. When Harold was very young, and we two lived together in the poor Highland cottage where he was born, my boy made an acquaintance with an Englishman, one Lord Arundale, a great student.

Harold longed to be a student too."

"A n.o.ble desire."

"I shared it too. When the thought came to me that my boy would be a great man, I nursed it, cherished it, made it my whole life's aim. We were not rich--I had not married for money"--and there was a faint show of pride in her lip--"yet, Harold must go, as he desired, to an English university. I said in my heart, 'He shall!' and he did."

Angus looked at Mrs. Gwynne, and thought that a woman's will might sometimes be as strong and daring as a man's.

Alison continued--"My son had only half finished his education when fortune made the poor poorer. But Scotland and Cambridge, thank Heaven were far distant I never told him one word--I lived--it matters little how--I cared not! Our fortune lasted, as I had calculated it would, till he had taken his degree, and left college rich in honours--and then"----

She ceased, and the light in her countenance faded. Angus Rothesay gazed upon her as reverently as he had done upon the good angel of his boyish days.

"I said you were a n.o.ble woman, Alison Balfour."

"I was a mother, and I had a n.o.ble son."

They sat a long time silent, looking at the fire, and listening to the wind. There was a momentary interruption--a message from the young clergyman, to say that he was summoned some distance to visit a sick person.

"On such a stormy night as this!" said Angus Rothesay.

"Harold never fails in his duties," replied the mother, with a smile.

Then turning abruptly to her guest--"You will let me talk, old friend, and about him. I cannot often talk _to_ him, for he is so reserved--that is, so occupied with his clerical studies. But there never was a better son than my Harold."

"I am sure of it," said Captain Rothesay.

The mother continued--"Never shall I forget the triumph of his coming home from Cambridge. Yet it brought a pang, too; for then first he had to learn the whole truth. Poor Harold! it pained me to see him so shocked and overwhelmed at the sight of our lowly roof and mean fare; and to know that even these would not last us long. But I said to him--'My son, what signifies it, when you can soon bring your mother to your own home?' For he, already a deacon, had had a curacy offered him, as soon as ever he chose to take priest's orders."

"Then he had already decided on entering the Church?"

"He had chosen that career in his youth. Towards it his whole education had tended. But," she added, with a troubled look, "my old friend, I may tell you one doubt, which I never yet breathed to living soul--I think at this time there was a struggle in his mind. Perhaps his dreams of ambition rose higher than the simple destiny of a country clergyman.

I hinted this to him, but he repelled me. Alas! he knew, as well as I, that there was now no other path open for him."

Mrs. Gwynne paused, and then went on, as though speaking more to herself than to her listener.

"The time came for Harold to decide. I did not wonder at his restlessness, for I knew how strong ambition must be in a man like him.

G.o.d knows I would have worked, begged, starved, rather than he should be thus tried. I told him so the day before his ordination; but he entreated me to be silent, with a look such as I never saw on his face before--such as I trust in G.o.d I never may see again. I heard him all night walking about his room; and the next morning he was gone ere I rose. When he came back, he seemed quite excited with joy, embraced me, told me I should never know poverty more, for that he was in priest's orders, and we should go the next week to the curacy at Harbury."

"And he has never repented?"

"I think not. He is not without the honours he desired; for his fame in science is extending far beyond his small parish. He fulfils his duties scrupulously; and the people respect him, though he sides with no party, high-church or evangelical We abhor illiberality--my son and I."

"That is clear, otherwise I had never seen Alison Balfour quitting the kirk for the church."

"Angus Rothesay," said Mrs. Gwynne, with dignity, "I have learned, throughout a long life, the lesson that trifling outward differences matter little--the spirit of religion is its true life. This lesson I have taught my son from his cradle; and where will you find a more sincere, moral, or pious man than Harold Gwynne?"

"Where, indeed, mother?" echoed a voice, as Harold, opening the door, caught her last words. "But come, no more o' that, an thou lovest me!"

"Harold!"

CHAPTER XVI.

Captain Rothesay found himself at breakfast on the sixth morning of his stay at Harbury--so swiftly had the time flown. But he felt a purer and a happier man every hour that he spent with his ancient friend.

The breakfast-room was Harold's study. It was more that of a man of science and learning than that of a clergyman. Beside Leighton and Flavel were placed Bacon and Descartes; dust lay upon John Newton's Sermons, while close by, rested in honoured, well-thumbed tatters, his great namesake, who read G.o.d's scriptures in the stars. In one corner by a large, unopened packet--marked "Religious Society's Tracts;" it served as a stand for a large telescope, whose clumsiness betrayed the ingenuity of home manufacture. The theological contents of the library was a vast ma.s.s of polemical literature, orthodox and heterodox, including all faiths, all variations of sect. Mahomet and Swedenborg, Calvin and the Talmud, lay side by side; and on the farthest shelf was the great original of all creeds--the Book of books.

On this morning, as on most others, Harold Gwynne did not appear until after prayers were over. His mother read them, as indeed she always did morning and evening. A stranger might have said, that her doing so was the last lingering token of her sway as "head of the household."

Harold entered, his countenance bearing the pallid restless look of one who lies half-dreaming in bed, long after he is awake and ought to have risen. His mother saw it.

"You are not right, Harold. I had far rather that you rose at six and studied till nine, as formerly, than that you should dream away the morning hours, and come down looking as you do now. Forgive me, but it is not good for you, my son."

She often called him _my son_ with a beautiful simplicity, that reminded one of the holy Hebrew mothers--of Rebekah or of Hannah.

Harold looked for a moment disconcerted--not angry. "Do not mind me, mother; I shall go back to study in good time. Let me do as I judge best."

"Certainly," was all the mother's reply. She reproved--she never "scolded." Turning the conversation, she directed hers to Captain Rothesay, while Harold ate his breakfast in silence--a habit not unusual with him. Immediately afterwards he rose, and prepared to depart for the day.

"I need not apologise to Captain Rothesay," he said in his own straightforward manner, which was only saved from the imputation of bluntness by a certain manly dignity--and contrasted strongly with the reserved and courtly grace of his guest. "My pursuits can scarcely interest you, while I know, and _you_ know, what pleasure my mother takes in your society."

"You will not stay away all this day too, Harold. Surely that is a little too much to be required, even by Miss Derwent," spoke the quick impulse of the mother's unconscious jealousy. But she repressed it at once--even before the sudden flush of anger awakened by her words had faded from Harold's brow. "Go, my son--your mother never interferes either with your duties or your pleasures."

Harold took her hand--though with scarce less formality than he did that of Captain Rothesay; and in a few minutes they saw him gallop down the hill and across the open country, with a speed beseeming well the age of five-and-twenty, and the season of a first love.

Mrs. Gwynne looked after him with an intensity of feeling that in any other woman would have found vent in a tear--certainly a sigh.

"You are thinking of your son and his marriage," said Angus.

"That is not strange. It is a life-crisis with all men--and it has come so suddenly--I scarcely know my Harold of two months since in my Harold now."

"To work such results, it must be an ardent love."