Out in the Forty-Five Part 17

News came last night, just before we started, that my Lord Orford is dead--he that was Sir Robert Walpole, and the Elector's Prime Minister.

Father says his death is a good thing for the country, for it gives more hope that the King may come by his own. I don't know what would happen if he did. I suppose it would not make much difference to us. Indeed, I rather wish things would not happen, for the things that happen are so often disagreeable ones. I said so this evening, and Mr Keith smiled, and answered, "You are young to have reached that conviction, Miss Caroline."

"Oh, rubbish!" said Angus. "Only old women talk so!"

"Angus, will you please tell me," said I, "whether young men have generally more sense than old women?"

"Of course they have!" replied he.

"The young men are apt to think so," added Flora.

"But have young women more sense than old ones?" said I. "Because I see, whenever people mean to speak of anything as particularly silly, they always say it is worthy of an old woman. Now why an old woman?

Have I more commonsense now than I shall have fifty years hence? And if so, at what age may I expect it to take leave of me?"

"You are not talking sense now, at any rate," replied Angus--who might be my brother, instead of my cousin, for the way in which he takes me up, whatever I say.

"Pardon me," said Mr Keith. "I think Miss Caroline is talking very good sense."

"Then you may answer her," said Angus.

"Nay," returned Mr Keith. "The question was addressed to you."

"Oh, all women are sillies!" was Angus's flattering answer. "They're just a pack of ninnies, the whole lot of them."

"It seems to me, Angus," observed Mr Keith, quite gravely, "that you must have paid twopence extra for manners."

Flora and I laughed.

"I was not rich enough to go in for any," growled Angus. "I'm not a laird's son, Mr Duncan Keith, so you don't need to throw stones at me."

"Did I, Angus? I beg your pardon."

Angus muttered something which I did not hear, and was silent. I thought I had better let the subject drop.

But before we went to bed, something happened which I never saw before.

Mr Keith took a book from his pocket, and sat down at the table. Flora rose and went to the sofa, motioning to me to come beside her. Even Angus twisted himself round, and sat in a more decorous way.

"What are we going to do?" I asked of Flora.

"The exercise, dear," said she.

"Exercise!" cried I. "What are we to exercise?"

A curious sort of gurgle came from Angus's part of the room, as if a laugh had made its way into his throat, and he had smothered it in its cradle.

"The word is strange to Miss Caroline," said Mr Keith, looking round with a smile. "We Scots people, Madam, speak of exercising our souls in prayer. We are about to read in G.o.d's Word, and pray, if you please.

It is our custom, morning and evening."

"But how can we pray?" said I. "There is no clergyman."

"Though I am not a minister," replied Mr Keith, "yet I trust I have learned to pray."

It seemed to me so strange that anybody not a clergyman should think of praying before other people! However, I sat down, of course, on the sofa by Flora, and listened while Mr Keith read something out of the Gospel of Saint John, about the woman of Samaria, and what our Lord said to her. But I never heard such reading in my life! I thought I could have gone on listening to him all night. The only clergymen that I ever heard read were Mr Bagnall and poor old Mr Digby, and the one always read in a high singsong tone, which gave me the idea that it was nothing I need listen to; and the other mumbled indistinctly, so that I never heard what he said. But Mr Keith read as if the converse were really going on, and you actually heard our Lord and the woman talking to one another at the well. He made it seem so real that I almost fancied I could hear the water trickling, and see the cool wet green mosses round the old well. Oh, if clergymen would always read and preach as if the things were real, how different going to church would be!

Then we knelt down, and Mr Keith prayed. It was not out of the Prayer-Book. And I dare say, if I were to hear nothing but such prayers, I might miss the dear old prayers that have been like sweet sounds floating around me ever since I knew anything. But this evening, when it was all new, it came to me as so solemn and so real! This was not saying one's prayers; it was talking to one's Friend. And it seemed as if G.o.d really were Mr Keith's Friend--as if they knew each other, and were not strangers at all, but each understood what the other would like or dislike, and they wanted to please one another. I hope I am not irreverent in writing so, but really it did seem like that. And I never saw anything like it before.

I suppose, to the others, it was an old worn-out story--all this which came so new and fresh to me. When we rose up, Angus said, without any pause,--

"Well! I am off to bed. Good-night, all of you."

Flora went up to him and offered him a kiss, which he took as if it were a condescension to an inferior creature; and then, without saying anything more to Mr Keith or me, lighted his candle and went away.

Flora sighed as she looked after him, and Mr Keith looked at her as if he felt for her.

"I shall be glad to get him home," said Flora, answering Mr Keith's look, I think. "If he can only get back to Father, then, perhaps--"

"Aye," said Mr Keith, meaningly, "it is all well, when we do get back to the Father."

Flora shook her head sorrowfully. "Not that!" she answered. "O Duncan, I am afraid, not that, yet! I feel such terrible fear sometimes lest he should never come back at all, or if he do, should have to come over sharp stones and through th.o.r.n.y paths."

"'So He bringeth them unto their desired haven,'" was Mr Keith's gentle answer.

"I know!" she said, with a sigh. "I suppose I ought to pray and wait.

Father does, I am sure. But it is hard work!"

Mr Keith did not answer for a moment; and when he did, it was by another bit of the Bible. At least I think it was the Bible, for it sounded like it, but I should not know where to find it.

"'Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.'"

Castleton, April the sixth.

Mr Keith left us so early this morning that there was not time for anything except breakfast and good-bye. I feel quite sorry to lose him, and wish I had a brother like him. (Not like Angus--dear me, no!) Why could we four girls not have had one brother?

About half an hour after Mr Keith was gone, the Scots gentleman with whom we were to travel--Mr Cameron--came in. He is a man of about fifty, bald-headed and rosy-faced, pleasant and chatty enough, only I do not quite always understand him. By six o'clock we were all packed into his chaise, and a few minutes later we set forth from the inn door. The streets of Carlisle felt like home; but as we left them behind, and came gradually out into the open country, it dawned upon me that now, indeed, I was going out into the great world.

We sleep here to-night, where Flora and I have a little bit of a bed-chamber next door to a larger one where Mr Cameron and Angus are.

On Monday we expect to reach Abbotscliff. I am too tired to write more.

Abbotscliff Manse, April the ninth.

I really could not go on any sooner. We reached the manse--what an odd name for a vicarage!--about four o'clock yesterday afternoon. The church (which Flora calls the kirk) and the manse, with a few other houses, stand on a little rising ground, and the rest of the village lies below.

But before I begin to talk about the manse, I want to write down a conversation which took place on Monday morning as we journeyed, in which Mr Cameron told us some curious things that I do not wish to forget. We were driving through such a pretty little village, and in one of the doorways an old woman sat with her knitting.

"Oh, look at that dear old woman!" cries Flora. "How pleasant she looks, with her clean white ap.r.o.n and mutch!"

"Much, Flora?" said I. "What do you mean?" I thought it such an odd word to use. What was she much?