Warlock o' Glenwarlock Part 42

"It's an innocent cratur' at gies thanks for cauld watter--I hae aye remarkit that!" said Grizzie. "But I maun awa' to my bairn up the stair; an' may it please the Lord to lift her or lang, for they maun be luikin for her yont the burn by this time. Whan she wauks i' the mornin', the' 'ill be nae mair scornin'!"

This was Grizzie's last against her mistress. The laird took no notice of it: he knew Grizzie's devotion, and, well as he loved his mother, could not but know also that there was some ground for her undevised couplet.

Scarcely a minute had pa.s.sed when the voice of the old woman came from the top of the stair, calling aloud and in perturbation,

"Laird! laird! come up direc'ly. Come up, lairds baith! She's comin' til hersel'!"

They hastened up, Cosmo helping his father, and approached the bed together.

With smooth, colourless face, unearthly to look upon, the old lady lay motionless, her eyes wide open, looking up as if they saw something beyond the tester of the bed, her lips moving, but uttering no sound. At last came a murmur, in which Cosmo's ears alone were keen enough to discern the articulation.

"Mar'on, Mar'on," she said, "ye're i' the lan' o' forgiveness! I hae dune the lad no ill. He'll come hame to ye nane the waur for ony words o' mine. We're no' a' made sae guid to begin wi' as yersel', Mar'on!"

Here her voice became a mere murmur, so far as human ears could distinguish, and presently ceased. A minute or so more and her breathing grew intermittent. After a few long respirations, at long intervals, it stopped.

"She'll be haein' 't oot wi' my ain mistress or lang!" remarked Grizzie to herself as she closed her eyes.

"Mother! mother!" cried the laird, and kneeled by the bedside.

Cosmo kneeled also, but no word of the prayers that ascended was audible. The laird was giving thanks that another was gone home, and Cosmo was praying for help to be to his father a true son, such as the Son of Man was to the Father of Man. They rose from their knees, and went quietly down the stair; and as they went from the room, they heard Grizzie say to herself,

"She's gang whaur there's mair--eneuch an' to spare!"

The remains of Lady Joan's ten pounds was enough to bury her.

They invited none, but all the village came to her funeral.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

THE LABOURER.

Such power had been acc.u.mulated and brought to bear against Glenwarlock, that at length he was reduced almost to the last extremity. He had had to part with his horses before even his crops were all sown, and had therefore dismissed his men, and tried to sell what there was as it stood, and get some neighbouring farmer to undertake the rest of the land for the one harvest left him; but those who might otherwise have bought and cultivated were afraid of offending Lord Lick-my-loof, whose hand was pretty generally seen in the turn of affairs, and also of involving themselves in an unsecure agreement. So things had come to a bad pa.s.s with the laird and his household. A small crop of oats and one of potatoes were coming on, for which the laird did what little he could, a.s.sisted by Grizzie and Aggie at such times when they could leave their respective charges, but in the meantime the stock of meal was getting low, and the laird did not see where more was to come from.

He and Grizzie had only porridge, with a little salt b.u.t.ter, for two, and not unfrequently the third also of their daily meals.

Grizzie for awhile managed to keep alive a few fowls that picked about everywhere, finally making of them broth for her invalid, and persuading the laird to eat the little that was not boiled away, till at length there was neither cackle nor crow about the place, so that to Cosmo it seemed dying out into absolute silence--after which would come the decay and the crumbling, until the castle stood like the great hollow mammoth-tooth he had looked down upon in his dream.

At once he proceeded to do what little could yet be done for the on-coming crops, resolving to hire himself out for the harvest to some place later than Glenwarlock, so that he might be able to mow the oats before leaving, when his father and Grizzie with the help of Aggie would secure them.

Nothing could now prevent the closing of the net of the last mortgage about them; and the uttermost Cosmo could hope for thereafter was simply to keep his father and Grizzie alive to the end of their natural days. Shelter was secure, for the castle was free. The winter was drawing on, but there would be the oats and the potatoes, with what kail the garden would yield them, and they had, he thought, plenty of peats. Yet not unfrequently, as he wandered aimless through the dreary silence, he would be speculating how long, by a judiciously ordered consumption of the place, he could keep his father warm. The stables and cow-houses would afford a large quant.i.ty of fuel; the barn too had a great deal of heavy wood-work about it; and there was the third tower or block of the castle, for many years used for nothing but stowage, whose whole thick floors he would thankfully honour, burning them to ashes in such a cause. In the spring there would be no land left them, but so long as he could save the house and garden, and find means of keeping his two alive in them, he would not grieve over that.

Agnes was a little shy of Cosmo--he had been away so long! but at intervals her shyness would yield and she would talk to him with much the same freedom as of old when they went to school together.

In his rambles Cosmo would not pa.s.s her grandfather's cottage without going in to inquire after him and his wife, and having a little chat with Aggie. Her true-hearted ways made her, next to his father and Mr. Simon, the best comforter he had.

She was now a strong, well-grown, sunburnt woman, with rough hands and tender eyes. Occasionally she would yet give a sharp merry answer, but life and its needs and struggles had made her grave, and in general she would, like a soft cloud, brood a little before she gave a reply. She had by nature such a well balanced mind, and had set herself so strenuously to do the right thing, that her cross seemed already her natural choice, as indeed it always is--of the deeper nature. In her Cosmo always found what strengthened him for the life he had now to lead, though, so long as at any hour he could have his father's company, and saw the old man plainly reviving in his presence, he could not for a moment call or think it hard, save in so far as he could not make his father's as easy as he would.

When the laird heard that his son, the heir of Glenwarlock, had hired himself for the harvest on a neighbouring farm, he was dumb for a season. It was heavy both on the love and the pride of the father, which in this case were one, to think of his son as a hired servant--and that of a rough, swearing man, who had made money as a butcher. The farm too was at such distance that he could not well come home to sleep! But the season of this dumbness, measured by the clock, at least, was but of a few minutes duration; for presently the laird was on his knees thanking G.o.d that he had given him a son who would be an honour to any family out of heaven: in there, he knew, every one was an honour to every other!

Before the harvest on the farm of Stanewhuns arrived, Cosmo, to his desire, had cut their own corn, with Grizzie to gather, Aggie to bind, and his father to stook, and so got himself into some measure of training. He found it harder, it is true, at Stanewhuns, where he must keep up with more experienced scythe-men, but, just equal to it at first, in two days he was little more than equal, and able to set his father's heart at ease concerning his toil.

With all his troubles, it had been a blessed time so long as he spent most of the day and every evening in his father's company.

Not unfrequently would Mr. Simon make one, seated with them in the old drawing-room or on some hillside, taking wisest share in every subject of talk that came up. In the little council Cosmo represented the rising generation with its new thought, its new consciousness of need, and its new difficulties; and was delighted to find how readily his notions were received, how far from strange they were to his old-fashioned friends, especially his preceptor, and how greatly true wisdom suffices for the hearing and understanding of new cries after the truth. For what all men need is the same--only the look of it changes as its nature expands before the growing soul or the growing generation, whose hunger and thirst at the same time grow with it. And, coming from the higher to the lower, it must be ever in the shape of difficulty that the most precious revelations first appear. Even Mary, to whom first the highest revelation came, and came closer than to any other, had to sit and ponder over the great matter, yea and have the sword pa.s.s through her soul, ere the thoughts of her heart could be revealed to her. But Cosmo of the new time, found himself at home with the men of the next older time, because both he and they were true; for in the truth there is neither old nor new; the well instructed scribe of the kingdom is familiar with the new as well as old shapes of it, and can bring either kind from his treasury.

There was not a question Cosmo could start, but Mr. Simon had something at hand to the point, and plenty more within digging-scope of his thought-spade.

But now that he had to work all day, and at night see no one with whom to take sweet counsel, Cosmo did feel lonely--yet was it an unfailing comfort to remember that his father was within his reach, and he would see him the next Sunday. And the one thing he had dreaded was spared him--namely, having to share a room with several other men, who might prove worse than undesirable company. For the ex-butcher, the man who was a byword in the country-side for his rough speech, in this showed himself capable of becoming a gentleman, that he had sympathy with a gentleman: he would neither allow Cosmo to eat with the labourers--to which Cosmo himself had no objection, nor would hear of his sleeping anywhere but in the best bedroom they had in the house. Also, from respect to the heir of a decayed family and valueless inheritance, he modified even his own habits so far as almost to cease swearing in his presence.

Appreciating this genuine kindness, Cosmo in his turn tried to be agreeable to those around him, and in their short evenings, for, being weary, they retired early, would in his talk make such good use of his superior knowledge as to interest the whole family, so that afterwards most of them declared it the pleasantest harvest-time they had ever had. Perhaps it was a consequence that the youngest daughter, who had been to a boarding-school, and had never before appeared in any harvest-field, betook herself to that in which they were at work towards the end of the first week, and GATHERED behind Cosmo's scythe. But Cosmo was far too much occupied--thinking to the rhythmic swing of his scythe, to be aware of the honour done him. Still farther was he from suspecting that it had anything to do with the appearing of Agnes one afternoon, bringing him a letter from his father, with which she had armed herself by telling him she was going thitherward, and could take a message to the young laird.

The harvest began upon a Monday, and the week pa.s.sed without his once seeing his father. On the Sunday he rose early, and set out for Castle Warlock. He would have gone the night before, but at the request of his master remained to witness the signing of his will.

As he walked he found the week had given him such a consciousness of power as he had never had before: with the labour of his own hands he knew himself capable of earning bread for more than himself; while his limbs themselves seemed to know themselves stronger than hitherto. On the other hand he was conscious in his gait of the intrusion of the workman's plodding swing upon the easy walk of the student.

His way was mostly by footpaths, often up and down hill, now over a moor, now through a valley by a small stream. The freshness of the morning he found no less reviving than in the old boyish days, and sang as he walked, taking huge breaths of the life that lay on the heathery hill-top. And as he sang the words came--nearly like the following. He had never wondered at the powers of the improvvisatore. It was easy to him to extemporize.

Win' that blaws the simmer plaid, Ower the hie hill's shouthers laid, Green wi' gerse, an' reid wi' heather, Welcome wi' yer soul-like weather!

Mony a win' there has been sent Oot 'aneth the firmament; Ilka ane its story has; Ilka ane began an' was; Ilka ane fell quaiet an' mute Whan its angel wark was oot.

First gaed ane oot ower the mirk, Whan the maker gan to work; Ower it gaed and ower the sea, An' the warl' begud to be.

Mony ane has come an' gane Sin' the time there was but ane: Ane was great an' strong, an' rent Rocks an' mountains as it went Afore the Lord, his trumpeter, Waukin' up the prophet's ear; Ane was like a steppin' soun'

I' the mulberry taps abune; Them the Lord's ain steps did swing, Walkin' on afore his king; Ane lay doon like scoldit pup At his feet an' gatna up, Whan the word the maister spak Drave the wull-cat billows back; Ane gaed frae his lips, an' dang To the earth the sodger thrang; Ane comes frae his hert to mine, Ilka day, to mak it fine.

Breath o' G.o.d, oh! come an' blaw Frae my hert ilk fog awa'; Wauk me up, an' mak me strang, Fill my hert wi' mony a sang, Frae my lips again to stert, Fillin' sails o' mony a hert, Blawin' them ower seas dividin'

To the only place to bide in.

"Eh, Mr. Warlock! is that you singin' o' the Sawbath day?" said the voice of a young woman behind him, in a tone of gentle raillery rather than expostulation.

Cosmo turned and saw Elspeth, his master's daughter already mentioned.

"Whaur's the wrang o' that, Miss Elsie?" he answered. "Arena we tellt to sing an' mak melody to the Lord?"

"Ay, but i' yer hert, no lood oot--'cep' it be i' the kirk. That's the place to sing upo' Sundays. Yon wasna a psalm-tune ye was at!"

"Maybe no. Maybe I was a bit ower happy for ony tune i' the tune-buiks, an' bude to hae ane 'at cam o' 'tsel'!"

"An' what wad mak ye sae happy--gien a body micht speir?" asked Elspeth, peeping from under long lashes, with a shy, half frightened, sidelong glance at the youth.

She was a handsome girl of the milkmaid type, who wore a bonnet with pretty ribbons, thought of herself as a young lady, and had many admirers, whence she had grown a little bold, without knowing it.

"Ye haena ower muckle at hame to make ye blithe, gien a' be true,"

she added sympathetically.

"I hae a'thing at hame to make me blithe--'cep' it be a wheen mair siller," answered Cosmo; "but maybe that'll come neist--wha kens?"

"Ay! wha kens?" returned the girl with a sigh. "There's mony ane doobtless wad be ready eneuch wi' the siller anent what ye hae wantin' 't!"