St. Cuthbert's Part 21

Margaret was home again. She had been gone from us two immeasurable days. It was Mr. Blake who rang the bell, for it was his house had sheltered her when my cruel anger drove her from my own. Need and sorrow never turned to him in vain.

When the door was opened, Margaret stood before it alone. Her mother it was who opened unto her, for this is woman's oldest and holiest avocation, door-keeper unto wandering feet. In all His delicate missions woman is G.o.d's deputy.

Through all my narrative of this sad affair I have said but little of Margaret's mother, but I know my readers have discerned her presence amid it all, as one discerns a brooding mountain through the mist. The great background of every tragedy is a woman's stately sorrow.

I had been visiting the sick, far more for my sake than for theirs, and was not home when Margaret returned. But a nameless fragrance greeted me at the door, and in my study I found Margaret in her mother's arms. The latter quietly withdrew and the compact between father and daughter was soon complete. It was of mutual surrender, wherein is mutual peace.

Margaret's only word was that she could not give her father up--nor Angus--that I must say nothing more about her love and that we must wait--together. Which was all sweet enough to me, for she was mine again, and our manse light had been rekindled.

For the rest, I was willing to wait, on which after all hangs the reality of all joy or sorrow. Every grief hath that opportunity of cure; every joy that peril of vicissitude. Till time hath ceased from her travail, no man can tell her offspring's s.e.x, whether it be rugged care, or sweet and tender joy.

Meantime, Margaret nestled again within the old tender place and we both struggled to nourish our phantom joy. Counterfeit though we both discerned it, yet it pa.s.sed unchallenged between us and at least kept our souls' commerce from decay. Counterfeit I have called it, for the tenure of another's love was upon her; and her stay with us was like that of a sailor lad who is for a time ash.o.r.e, waiting for the tardy tide.

The ordination Sabbath was aglow with holy light. G.o.d surely loves Presbyterian high days, for they are nearly always beautiful. St.

Cuthbert's was filled long before eleven with a reverent and expectant congregation. Five new elders had been elected, three of them their father's successors, for this was a common custom in New Jedboro, and apostolic succession in disguise was in high favour amongst us. Another was a man of seventy or more, for every ordination must recognize the stalwarts whose days of activity were past but whose time for honour was at hand. The remaining elder-elect was Angus Strachan. His choice by the congregation had been unanimous and cordial. His examination by the Session had resulted in hearty confirmation. Our manse tragedy was unknown to any of the elders except Mr. Blake, who preserved complete silence throughout the interview. The ordeal was painful beyond words to me--but it was over, and Angus sat in the front pew with the other four, awaiting ordination to their sacred office.

We had sung the psalm which from time immemorial Presbyterian ministers have announced on all ecclesiastical occasions, the hundred and second psalm, the second version, from the thirteenth verse, reading over again, as their habit is, the first two lines:

"Thou shalt arise and mercy yet Thou to Mount Zion shalt extend;"

the venerable Dr. Inglis of Moffat had preached the sermon from the text:--"Feed the flock of G.o.d which is among you," and the elders elect took their places before the pulpit.

I addressed them in what I considered fitting terms, recalling the great traditions of the church they were called to serve and the n.o.ble labours of the G.o.dly men whose mantles had now fallen upon themselves. I referred to our precious legacy, bequeathed to us from the hands of Covenanters, and a reverent hush throughout the whole congregation applauded the names of Renwick and Peden and Cameron, as they fell from my lips.

Then all the elders took their places beside me, for the act of ordination was about to be performed. This consisted of prayer and the laying on of hands--not of the minister's hands alone, for we in St.

Cuthbert's adhered to the ancient Scottish mode of ordination by the laying on of the hands of the entire Session.

The candidates kneeled before us, Angus on my right, having changed his place for some unapparent reason, soon to be abundantly revealed. The hands first outstretched towards his bended head were those of Mr.

Blake. Whereupon an awful thing befell us; for the solemn stillness of the kirk was broken by the ringing of a voice aflame with pa.s.sion:--"Take back your hand--touch not a hair of my head. Go cleanse your hand. Go purify your heart--they are both polluted. Whited sepulchre, give up your dead--let the rotting memories walk forth. Go wash another's blood from your guilty soul before you dare to serve at G.o.d's altar!"

The trembling object of this outburst shrank back from before it. The kneeling candidates bowed lower. I myself stood as one in a fearful dream, while the horror-stricken people half rose within their pews, bending forward as they gazed at the sacrilegious scene.

Angus turned and looked unflinchingly into their faces. I feared he was about to speak again and I raised my hand to signify forbiddal--but he saw it not, and my inward protest yielded to his fiery purpose.

"Aye, you may well look," he cried to the awestruck worshippers. "G.o.d knows I had not meant to do this thing or to speak these words. I came here with the honest purpose to a.s.sume the vows that should forever bind me to His service. My heart was honest before G.o.d; but when I felt the approach of those guilty hands it was beyond my power to endure their touch. Nor should I feel shame for what I have done. You remember the scourge of knotted cords and the holy temple. Is it wrong that I too should now seek to drive forth this unworthy man? He stands unmasked before you. You know not who he is! He is my father and we share our shame together! Another shares it with her G.o.d where the Ettrick water hears her prayer. And this is the man whose hands would convey the grace of G.o.d!"

He stopped; and the blanched faces before him gave back a voice, half cry, half sob, anguish rending every heart. They were a proud folk in St. Cuthbert's; besides no man of all the elders was so dear to them as Mr. Blake, his piety and philanthropy so long tried and proved. Although we know it not, there is no a.s.set held more dear than the solvency of a man in whom we vest the precious savings of our confidence.

Every eye and heart seemed turned towards the man so fiercely accused, silently entreating him to relieve the cruel tension.

None doubted that his swift denial would confirm the confidence of our loyal hearts. But the silence drew itself out, moment after moment, each bequeathing its legacy of pain to its successor. Mr. Blake's eyes were raptly fixed on his accuser--his traducer, as we secretly defined him.

Their light was not the glow of wrath, nor of resentment, but of a strange wistful curiosity, mixed with eager yearning. Fear and love seemed to look out together.

In the pause that followed, Angus swiftly handed to me a small picture, encased after an ancient fashion.

"Look at that, sir," he said, "that will tell its tale--that is my father's face."

I looked with eager intentness, and it required but a glance to show that the pictured face before me, and the pallid face beside me, were the same. The picture was evidently taken long years before, and the stamp of youth and hope and ardent faith was upon the face. Locks raven black, and an unwrinkled brow, had been exchanged for those that bore the scar of time and care; but no careful eye could fail to see that the youthful face of the picture and the ashen face of the elder were one and the same.

But,--more striking and fatal far--the photograph's evidence was not required. No man who saw, as I saw, the faces of Michael Blake and Angus Strachan side by side need wait for other evidence. Often had I seen them thus before--but never in the nakedness of pa.s.sion.

Pa.s.sion has the artist's magic hand and her master sketch is ever of her home. As t.i.tian's immortal hills were but the reproduction of his far-off dwelling-place, genius plighting its troth to childhood, so doth pa.s.sion illumine first the environs of her long time home, how humble so ever it may be. Pa.s.sion paints the eternal childlike that is in us all.

The face is the window through which the vista of a soul's inner life is flashed by her mystic hand, and in that moment the window glows with the unfeigned light of childhood, its simple radiance still unquenched, though long draped by artificial years.

Thus transfigured were the faces of Angus Strachan and Michael Blake--the one with mingled love and fear, the other with unmingled scorn. With that swift intensity of pa.s.sion came the reversal to their common type, and the great betrayal was complete. The blood they shared together, speaking a kindred language, had turned King's evidence at last, and its unanswerable testimony leaped from face and eye.

For G.o.d hath His silent witnesses, like John the Baptist, by us shut up in prison and by us beheaded--but He calleth them to the witness-stand as pleaseth Him; and they live forever in dreadful gospels of love and doom, the latter sharing the power of the former's endless life. Their voice is heard above Herodias' strains of revelry and even sceptred Sadducees tremble at the sound.

Vast is life's mighty forest, but the wronger and the wronged meet somewhere amid its shadowy glades. Surely life's wooded maze might afford a hiding place to those who fly from armed memories--but G.o.d's rangers tread its every glen with stealthy step and the foliage of every thicket gleams with the armour of His detective host. A chance meeting, a foundling acquaintance, a stray newspaper, an undestroyed letter, a resurgent memory, a neglected photograph, or, as here, a tell-tale tide of blood--all these have accepted G.o.d's retainer and bear the invisible badge that denotes His world-spread Force. All life's apparent discord is harmony itself when He determines the departments and allots to every thing, and to every man, his work!

"You speak of Ettrick! What know you of Ettrick? What is her name that lives there?" I heard Mr. Blake ask in a faltering whisper, unheard by the rigid worshippers.

"She bears no name save that which you defiled--it shall not be spoken here, though I honour it with my deepest heart--but look on this," and Angus held out before him what he had drawn from his bosom as he spoke.

Michael Blake's gaze was fixed upon it, no word or sound coming from his lips. His eyes clung to it with tranquil eagerness, unconscious of all about, still clinging when Angus withdrew it, wrapped it in the paper which had enclosed it, and restored it to its hiding-place.

I know not why, but I held out my hand to him eagerly:

"Let me see it, Angus; my own mother is with G.o.d."

He hesitated but a moment, then drew it forth and handed it to me.

"All the world may see it," he said quietly, "it is my mother--you may read the letter if you will."

The portrait was of a woman still rich with girlhood's charm. Of about nineteen years, I should say, tall and graceful and sweet of countenance, with a great wealth of hair, with eyes that no flame but love's could have kindled, her lips, even in a picture, instinct with pure pa.s.sion, and her whole being evidently fragrant and luscious as Scottish girlhood alone can be. For the sweetest flowers are nourished at the breast of the most rugged hills.

I was still reading the story of love and innocence and hope, all of which were written in the lovely face before me, when Angus said very gently:

"Read the letter, sir."

The writing on the paper which enclosed the picture had escaped my notice. It was a letter from Angus' mother, sent with the daguerreotypes. Its closing words ran thus:

"I send ye this picture o' masel' and the ane o' the man I loved sae weel. No ither picture have I had taken, nor ither shall there be. It was taken for yir faither before the gloamin' settled doon on you and me, ma laddie. It was taken for him, as was every breath I drew, for I loved him wi' every ane.

"Ye maunna think ower hard o' him, laddie, for yir mother canna drive him forth, so ye maun bide thegither in this broken hairt o'

mine. And laddie, I am askin' G.o.d to keep me pure, for my love will hae its bloom some day far ayont us, like the bonny heather when the winter's bye. And I want to be worthy when it comes. I'm sair soiled, I ken, but love can weave its robe o' white for the very hairt it stained. And I maun be true till the gloamin's gone. So think o' yir mother as aye true to yir faither, and it'll mebbe help yir sorrow to ken there's aye this bond between yir faither and her wha bore ye. And Angus, dinna let him ken, gin ye should ever meet. Yir mother's bearin' her sorrow all alane in Ettrick and her laddie'll bear it ayont the ocean. We're a' in G.o.d's guid hands. Your loving mother,

JANET STRACHAN."

I returned the well worn letter to the unhappy hand from which I had received it. He tenderly wrapped it about his mother's picture and thrust the parcel back beside the loyal heart which shared, as it was bidden, the great sorrow and disgrace.

I then cast about in my mind for the next step which should be taken.

Ordination I knew there could now be none. The pestilence of anger and shame and sin was upon us all. Dark horror sat upon the faces of the waiting congregation, their eyes still fixed on these two actors of this so sudden tragedy. It may have been that the proof of kinship, as demonstrated by these confronting faces, was finding its way into their hearts. These faces were still fastened the one upon the other, the younger with glowing scorn, the older with mingled love and tenderness, blended with infinite self-reproach.

I could see no course open to me except the dismissal of the congregation, and so announced my purpose.

"The Kirk Session is adjourned sine die," I said, for this is an ancient phrase and the proper forms must be observed. Even when our dearest lies in her coffin, there are certain phrases which announce in cold and heartless print that the heart's life-blood is flowing from its wound, and, however sacred that silent form, the undertaker's hands must have their will with it.