Playing With Fire Part 33

"Just so! I have noticed that few things give a man more satisfaction than a resolve to do better at some future time. As for Marion's marriage, I can't see what influence your preaching or not preaching can have on that circ.u.mstance. She will not be married in the Church of the Disciples, and of course you cannot marry her."

"Marion will be married in my church and I shall marry her. It will be a great trial, but I shall not shirk it."

"Lord Cramer will insist on being married in St. Mary's Church, and by the Episcopal ritual. You would not be permitted to perform any service in St. Mary's unless you had taken Episcopal orders."

"Then we can have a private marriage."

"We can do nothing of the kind. Do you think that I will consent to my niece being married in a mouse hole? The Bishop is going to marry her, and it is to be a very grand affair. I have influence to bring to the ceremony most of our neighboring n.o.bility, and the military friends of Lord Cramer will be there in force, and their splendid uniforms will make a fine effect. It is the first wedding I have ever had anything to do with. You were married in a little Border village, and none of your kin there;--father and mother and your wife, all gone!" and the Major looked into the far horizon, as if he must see beyond it, while Ian stood still and white at his side. Not a word was spoken. For a few minutes both men surrendered themselves to Memory's divinest anguish.

Then the elder returned to their conversation and said--though in a much more subdued manner:

"Tell Marion to choose her six bride'smaids and give them beautiful wedding garments; tell her all I have said, and try to take some interest in the matter. Do, my dear lad, for no man will ever win Heaven by making his earthly home a h.e.l.l. Be sure and tell Marion that Lord Cramer will be here in three months, and give her a big check to prepare for his coming."

"I promise to tell Marion. I will be as good as my word."

"Just so. But this is a forgetful world, so I'll remind you of your promise once more--and there is the girl's little fortune."

"It is ready for her as soon as she is married. I have not touched a penny of it. It is intact, princ.i.p.al and interest, and, by a little careful investment, much increased."

"You are a good man--a generous man."

"No, no, Uncle. It was just pride, nothing better. She is _my_ child. I preferred to take care of her myself--with my own money."

Then they talked over the amounts to be spent on the marriage, on dress, visitors, the ceremony and traveling expense, and when some decision had been reached the Major was weary. He sighed heavily, and advised Ian to go home and try to be of a kinder and more familiar spirit. "And tell Marion," he said, "Lord Cramer will be in Glasgow in three or four months, and she must have all her 'braws' ready, for he will not hear tell of waiting--no, not for a day."

CHAPTER X

A DREAM

For while all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her swift course.... Then suddenly visions of horrible dreams troubled them sore, and terrors came upon them unlooked for.--Wisdom of Solomon, 18: 14: 17.

Dreams are rudiments of the great state to come.

For nearly two weeks after the Minister's talk with his uncle something of the old cheerfulness and peace returned to the house on Bath Street.

To Marion her father was exceedingly kind and generous, and the girl was radiantly happy in his love and in the many beautiful gifts by which he proved it. But "the good and the not so good," which is, to some extent, the inheritance of us all, gave him no rest, though for some days he was able partially to control the strife. He had been too intense a believer to stand still and say nothing about his doubts; and when a Scotchman has cast off Calvin, and been unable to accept Kant, he is not an agreeable man in domestic life. He was morbid, but he was not insincere, and he was really desperate concerning the salvation of his own soul.

So the busy gladness of Mrs. Caird about the wedding preparations and the joyous voice and radiant face of Marion, as the stream of love was bearing her gently to the Happy Isles, rasped and irritated him. He was beginning to feel that he had done enough--to wonder if he could not go away until the marriage was an accomplished fact. Everything about it, as far as he was concerned, had undergone the earth and been touched by disappointment; and nothing had brought him back the calm peace, the sweet content, the abiding strength that his old trust in the G.o.d of His Fathers had always given. The cynicism of lost faith infected his nature. He was even less courteous to all persons than he had ever been before. The man was deteriorating on every side.

"Oh, the regrets! the struggles and the failings!

Oh, the days desolate! the wasted years!"

To such mournful refrains he walked, hour after hour, the crowded streets and the narrow s.p.a.ces of his own rooms; for he felt, even as St.

Paul did, that, if all this great scheme of Christianity were not true, then its preachers were of all men most miserable. Generally speaking, poor Burns' prayer that we might see ourselves as others see us is surely an injudicious one, but if the Minister could have been favored with one day's observation of Ian Macrae, as he really appeared to his family, it might at least have given him food for reflection.

After a day of great depression, partly due to the marriage preparations and gloomy atmospheric conditions, but mainly, no doubt, to his wretched spiritual state, he went one evening to a session at the Church of the Disciples. He wondered at himself for going and his elders and deacons wondered at his presence. He was lost in thought, took no interest in the financial report of the treasurer, and left the meeting before it closed.

"The Minister was not heeding whether the Church was in good financial standing or not," said Deacon Crawford, "and I never saw such a look on any man's face. It comes back, and back, into my mind."

"Ay," answered another deacon, "and did you notice his brows? They were sorely vexed and troubled. And the eyes that had to live under them!

They gave you a heartache if he but cast them on you."

"We'll be having a great sermon come the Sabbath Day, no doubt," said the leading Elder; "and, the finances being in such good shape, what think you if we give the Minister's daughter a handsome bridal gift?"

"It isn't an ordinary thing to do, Elder."

"The Minister is getting a very good salary."

"He is an uncommonly proud man, too."

"And his daughter is marrying a lord."

"Well," answered the proposer of the gift, "there's plenty of time to think the matter over," and all readily agreed to this wise delay.

Though the Minister had left the session early, it was late when he reached home, weary and hungry, and glad of Mrs. Caird's kind words and plate of cold beef and bread.

"Where on earth have you been, Ian?" she asked. "Do you know it is past eleven?"

"I have been going up and down and to and fro in the city, watching the unceasing march of the armies of labor. The crowd never rested. When the day workers stopped the night workers began--weary, joyless men. It was awful, Jessy."

"I know," said Mrs. Caird, "it is

'All Life moving to one measure, Daily bread! Daily bread!

Bread of Life, and bread of Labor, Bread of bitterness and sorrow, Hand to mouth, and no to-morrow.'

Good night, Ian. Go to sleep as soon as you can."

How soon he kept this promise he never could remember; he only knew that when he awakened he was drenched with the sweat of terror and trembling from head to feet. "Who am I? Where am I?" he asked, as he fumbled with the Venetian blind until it somehow went up and let in the early dawning. Then he noticed the dripping condition of his night clothing, and he hurried to his bed and cried out in a low, shocked voice, "_The sheets are wet! The pillow is wet!_ What can it mean? What has happened?

_Oh, I remember!_" And he covered his face with his hands and his very soul shuddered within him.

Then his wet clothing shocked and frightened him, and he began to remove it with palpitating haste, muttering fearfully as he redressed himself: "How I must have suffered! Great G.o.d, the physical melts away at the touch of the Spiritual! Oh, I wish Jessy would come! Why is she so late?

When I do not want her she is here half an hour before this time." The next moment she tapped at his door and called,

"Ian."

"Oh, come in, Jessy. Come in! I want you! I want you!"

"Breakfast is waiting."

"Let it wait. Come in. I want you to tell me the truth, the plain, sure truth about what I am going to ask you."

"What is it, Ian?"

"Jessy, did you ever know me to dream?"

"Never. You have always declared that you could not understand what Marion and I meant by dreaming."