Playing With Fire Part 38

"I am afraid I cannot bring him home again."

"Would you think of suchlike foolishness? G.o.d gave him his wife and his portion out there. But I will tell you what you can do--you can bring home Mrs. Caird. In her last letter to Marion she said she was weary of golden oranges and perpetual sunshine; and she hoped G.o.d would let her come hame to her ain countrie before she died. She was fairly sick for the gray skies and green braes of Scotland, and, as for the rain, it was only gloom upon gleam, and gleam upon gloom--very comfortable weather upon the whole. I was sorry for the pleasant little woman. You can bring her back. See that you do so. For I am counting on you living with me, Ian. Why should we part? I am growing old, and need your love and company; and I want to be your right hand in the G.o.dlike work before you."

"My dear Uncle, you shall have all your will. I desire nothing better than to share your love and your home, and have your constant counsel and help."

"Then bring back Mrs. Caird. She will send away all the wasteful, lazy, dirty men bodies round the house, and hire in their place tidy, busy young la.s.ses. Then, Ian, I can have a dream of a home for my old age. No matter what her 'will and want,' give her everything she asks--only bring her back."

"I will do so, Uncle--if possible."

"Possible or not--bring her back."

There was no pause in their conversation until the long summer twilight filled the quiet square. Then they suddenly remembered Doctor James Lindsey and the London duties that might be hard to relinquish, and thus delay the work which they so eagerly willed to do. So Ian spent the evening in writing to his friend, while the Major lost himself the while in financial calculations about the great project.

Ian had not one doubt of his friend's sympathy. "I know James Lindsey, Uncle," he said with an air of happy confidence; "he will count G.o.d's claim long before his own. And he will see at once that I have been unconsciously preparing myself for the great work we are planning for eleven years; and, though I have been led by a way I knew not, every step has been taken right."

Then the Major looked into his happy face and said solemnly: "Ian, if you _saw_ the love of G.o.d shining on that father's face in the awful pit, I see it just as plainly on your countenance. It has absolutely changed it. Your voice is also different, and your words go singing through my soul. You are a new man. You are a happy man, and I used to think that, of all men, you were the most miserable."

"Uncle, I might well be miserable. The phantoms that peopled my nights must have destroyed life if G.o.d had not forbidden it--remorse that came too late--cries uttered to inexorable silence--doubt--anguish--prostration worse than death. I was afraid to look back, equally afraid to look forward; and then last night changed all in the twinkling of an eye. I fell at the feet of the Father of Spirits with a joy past utterance. Troubles of all kinds grew lighter than a gra.s.shopper. I had a rest unspeakable until rapture followed rest, and I cried out, 'Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee!'" Then the two men involuntarily clasped hands. They had no words fit for that moment.

Words would have been a hindrance, not a help.

The next morning Ian was crossing Exchange Place when he saw a man approaching who gave him a thrill of recollection. He hesitated for a moment, and then went quickly forward. His hand was outstretched and his face smiling.

"Richard!" he cried. "I am glad to see you. I am glad to have this opportunity of saying I did you wrong. I was very unkind both to you and to Marion. I am sincerely sorry for the past, will you forgive it now?"

And Lord Cramer clasped the hand offered and answered with hearty gladness: "I cannot forgive it now, sir. I forgave it many years ago.

Marion stands between us. We are the best of friends." Then they walked together cheerfully to a hotel and ordered a good lunch, for both English and Scotchmen cannot celebrate any event--whether it concern the heart or the purse--without offering a meat and drink sacrifice for the occasion. During the meal Ian sent loving words to Marion, and promised to be with her on the following day, and thus love and good-will took the place forever of wronged and slighted affection. Then he saw his eldest grandchild, a beautiful boy of ten years old, Ian, the future Lord of Cramer, and his heart went out to the lovable child, as it did also to the bright, seven-year-old Agnes and the pretty baby, Jessy.

Three days he spent at Cramer Hall, and saw all the improvements made there--the additions to the Hall, the fine condition of the park and gardens, and the famous and highly profitable oyster beds. So his heart was filled with that mortal love for which it had been aching and perishing.

When he returned to Glasgow he found Dr. Lindsey with his uncle. He had come in answer to Ian's letter, and he was enthusiastic concerning all Ian's intentions and eager to a.s.sist in realizing them. "You know, Ian,"

he said, "we were preparing for a long holiday together when you started for Furness and Ambleside. This is 'the long journey' for which we were unconsciously preparing. I called at the little mining village as I came here----"

"And that father and his boy?" interrupted the Major.

"They died together in the pit. They were laid in one wide grave, and rich and poor, from far and near, came to honor that perfect image of the Divine love. I called on his widow. She was still weeping for 'her man and her lile lad.' He was her first-born, but she has four other children, the youngest a few weeks old. She is very poor. Her neighbors are feeding her."

"But that must stop," cried Ian. "It is my duty and my pleasure. How can I ever pay the debt? I will see to it at once. It is a sin that I have not already done so."

"You are right, Ian," answered the Doctor; "and we may recall now how wonderfully you have been led, and realize that there is a kind of predestination in our life. It was necessary for you to spend ten years in the House of Pain and Suffering and Death; necessary for you to know how to cure the sick and to heal the wounded, in order to prepare you to receive the sacred mystery in that horrible pit, and make you fit for the work you have yet to do. Do you remember how impossible we found it, night after night, to satisfy ourselves as to the course and country our holiday should take? And all the time the journey was being arranged for us. Surely the steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord."

"'_Steps_,'" said the Major. "We may be glad of that word, for it is easy for a man to take just one step to ruin or to death."

The journey to America being determined, Dr. Lindsey went back to London to prepare his business for an absence of three months. Ian was glad of his companionship, and promised to meet him in Liverpool on the 25th of July. There they would take together pa.s.sage for New York. This plan was fully carried out, but of the voyage, the journeyings and their life in California there is no necessity to write. Possibly most of my readers have crossed the Atlantic, and know far more about California than I do; so that I may well leave any descriptions to their memories or imaginations. It is the humanity of my story with which we have to do.

They had been eagerly looked for at Los Angeles, and were welcomed with unbounded love and respect. Donald and his father drew aside for a moment, but what they said to each other only G.o.d knows. There is a divine silence in forgiveness. When Peter first met Christ, after his denial of Him, what did Peter say? What did Christ say? We are not told; but great wrongs can be wiped out in one tender word, though such acts in the drama of life are not translatable. It was different with Macbeth. He greeted his guests with a proud and delightful extravagance.

"You are welcome, '_Men of St. Andrews!_'" he cried; "you are tenfold welcome!" And for the next five weeks he gave himself to entertaining them in every possible way. The pretty Spanish wife was shy and reticent, but her three sons spoke for her, and Donald was evidently the idol of his house and in all his surroundings prosperous and happy.

Jessy Caird, however, had failed and faded physically more than she ought to have done, so Ian was not slow to take the first opportunity of speaking confidentially to her. She was sitting just within the open door of her bungalow. Her eyes were closed, her work had fallen from her hands, and there was no book of any kind within her reach. Ian wondered at these things. Jessy doing nothing! Jessy without a book! What could be the meaning of it?

She opened her eyes as she heard his approach, and said with a smile, "You are walking like your old self, Ian, but for all that sit down by me."

"That is what I am here for. I want to talk with you, and with you only.

My dear sister, you look sick--or very unhappy. Which is it?"

"Ian, I am both sick and unhappy. In the first place, I am heartbroken for my native land. I want to see once more the green, green straths of Scotland--the green straths with a haze of bluebells over them! I want the gray, soft skies and the little silvery showers that blessed both humanity and nature with constant freshness. And O Ian, I want, I want, I want the living tongue of running water! Do you mind that, in all the summers we spent in Arran, we could not go anywhere on the island and lose the happy sound of running water? Do you mind how the waters leaped from rock to rock, and thundered down the craggy glens, and then went singing and gurgling along the roadside? Ian, Ian, take me home! I want to die in my own country!"

"_Die!_ Nonsense, Jessy! You must live for others even if you want to die. I need you. You must go back to Scotland and help me. I have told you of the great work my uncle and I are planning. We cannot do without you."

Her face brightened, there was a smile in her eyes, and she looked eagerly at Ian as he continued:

"It would make you heartsick to see that fine house in the Square going to destruction. The Major's heart and head are in the building of the church, and the servant men are neglecting everything beneath their hands."

"It serves him right. The Major was set on having only servant men.

Three or four tidy women would have----"

"To be sure. We shall soon get rid of the men when you and I get home."

"What are you meaning, Ian? Speak straight."

"I am going to live with my uncle. He is an old man and needs me."

"Stuff and nonsense! He will never need either you or anybody else. You may need him."

"I need him now, Jessy. He is mainly building the church. His heart and soul are in it. He has given up practically his large business."

"Given up his business! What does the man mean?"

"He is only retaining the charge of three estates until the heirs come of age. He promised to do that, and does not feel it right to break a promise made to the dead."

"Well, then, a man may live decently from three estates."

"Jessy, we have laid out together such a great and good work, but without your help we cannot carry it forward. We must have some good woman to look after our food and our home. We are counting on you, and you must stand by us."

"I will go with you gladly. I will soon put a stop to the wastrie and pilfering going on in the Major's house; and I will take good care of you two f.e.c.kless, helpless men--but I am your sister, Ian; I must look to my position."

"You are right. You will be mistress. You will stand at my right hand, as you always did; and the Major said you were to have 'your will and want and wish,' whatever it was. Jessy, you are going _home_."

"How soon, Ian?"

"Any mail may bring me word to hurry back to Scotland. I feel that I ought to be there now. Get ready for an early journey."

In less than two weeks the expected letter, urging Ian's early return, came; and Ian and Jessy set their faces Scotlandward the next day; but Dr. Lindsey resolved to stay another month and see more of a country so wonderfully fresh and interesting. Jessy went away very quietly, and it struck Ian she was glad when the parting was over; and she acknowledged that in a certain way she was so.

"I was that feared I would die there," she said, "and I could not keep the little Border graveyard out of my thoughts. My kindred for three hundred years lie there, and I wanted to take my last rest among them."

This feeling would be to an American an unthinkable source of anxiety, but to the Scotch man or woman it would be a real and potent promoter of the feeling. For they cherish the memory of their fathers--good or bad--and there burns alive in them a sense of ident.i.ty with the dead, even to the twentieth generation. Ian thoroughly understood Jessy's worry and respected her for it.

"You should have written to me, Jessy. A word concerning your fear would have brought me to you at any time. Why did you think of dying? Were you not well treated?"

"I could not have been better treated. I was close to Donald's heart, the children loved me, and Macbeth wanted me to be his wife."