CHAPTER XI.
SCHILLER.
It was nearly twelve o’clock when the Edinburgh coach reached Stirling, carrying Harry, much subdued and cast down, but in reality this time detained by obstacles over which he had no control. During all this journey he had been contemplating the grim strength of ruin face to face—feeling himself now utterly beyond help or hope, able to do nothing but sit down and wait for the final blow. The place at which he had appointed his servant to meet him was some distance from the coach-office; and taking his little valise in his hand, Harry walked with a heavy, weary step, much unlike his usual elastic one, to find John.
The streets were still and deserted, the shops shut, the lights extinguished in almost every house he passed. The very public-houses, inns, and lower places of the same kind had put out all but one solitary lamp, which, just enough to light those who were within, looked dreary and melancholy to everybody without. Harry went along the street feeling himself an utter stranger here. This was partly true; for the friends he had made were of a very unpromising kind, and, themselves broken men for the most part, could render little comfort to a man at the point of ruin; but partly it was the mere desolation of the silent street, echoing to his footstep, which impressed the sensitive mind of Harry. He went along with his valise under his arm, and his pale face drooping—a face marked with lines of altogether new rigidity, and full of a silent forlorn despair, which it was touching to see in one so young, and naturally so hopeful. He could not tell what chill it was that overpowered his heart—ruin!—a descent from his rank and his inheritance—a return characterless, and with many a new habit of evil, to the occupation in which once before he had failed—worse than all, the remembrance of his sins, which returned to look him in the face like upbraiding spirits. Yet even this was not all: a vague dread, a shivering, mysterious presentiment of some unknown evil to come, hovered over these real griefs, and gave them shape and form, in a torpor of despair.
He set out upon the road with his servant at a rapid pace; but in spite of himself, the tramp of John’s horse, continually taking the course of his own behind, irritated him almost beyond endurance. He suffered it as long as he could, feeling his irritation a weakness; but at last yielded to the overpowering sense of annoyance which this trifling matter occasioned him, and sent his man on, following himself more slowly.
The night was very dark—dark as it is only in a perfectly rural country; and as the ringing silence closed about him, and he heard nothing but an occasional sigh from the river, or a faint flutter among the falling leaves, or the sound of his own progress upon the solitary road, Harry’s thoughts strayed away from his great miseries. Once or twice, a leaf in its descent blew across his face, and made his horse wince, and his heart beat—and then, there returned upon Harry his vague and inexpressible fear; but shut out from every sight, as he was, by this utter darkness, there rose up scenes of cheerful light before his imagination, beautiful to see: Uncle Sandy’s house at Ayr—the little parlour in Glasgow—the home in Allenders to which he was returning. A strange, dreamy pleasure stole over him—he forgot his sins, his misfortunes, his near and inevitable ruin—he thought of the home enjoyments which no man had known more largely—he thought of his little loving wife—of the passionate affection of Martha—of Rose’s gentler tenderness, and strange little poetic Lettie, with her wistful eyes. Poor Harry! his heart swelled with sudden relief as these came to his imagination: little domestic remembrances, looks, words, innocent mistakes and blunders, things which long ago brought pleasant, kindly laughter, or tender tears to the faces of them all. The reins fell loosely on his horse’s neck as he resigned himself to this repose; and the cottage firesides at Maidlin, and the boyish companions of Ayr, looked in, and interwove themselves with those fancies of home. Sometimes he tried to rouse himself, and a sharp pain shot through his heart as for a moment he remembered his real state and prospects; but still this singular dream returned upon him, and in his heart he thanked God!
Meanwhile, in Allenders they sit and watch, looking out with dread and sickening pain into the darkness, praying till their hearts are again “like to break.” Sometimes Agnes kneels down by a chair, and hides her face, and utters a low unconscious cry; sometimes Martha walks heavily up or down the room, pausing in the midst, to think she hears in reality the sound which has mocked them in imagination all the night. “I am going to my own room—do not come to me,” said Martha, at last, in a half-whisper, and she left them without another word.
But not to her own chamber to weep or pray, as they thought; Mysie nodding by the kitchen fire was suddenly startled by Martha’s appearance, with a rigid white face like death, and a cloak enveloping her whole person. With a slight scream, the drowsy girl started to her feet, scarcely knowing if she saw a human being or a spirit.
“Mysie, you are bold,” said Martha, with such distinct rapidity that her words seemed to occupy no time. “I want the carriage instantly. I am going to seek my brother. Come, and show me what has to be done.”
“I’ll waken John,” said the terrified Mysie.
“I do not require John. What is to be done, I can do myself. Give me a light.”
But Mysie, who was in reality a brave girl, and could manage horses as easily as she managed the brown cow, and who besides doted on little Harry and the baby, and would not have hesitated at even a greater thing for their father, answered by lifting John’s lantern; and catching down a plaid which hung on the wall as they passed, she led the way to the stables without another word.
It was a strange scene: Mysie excited, and still half-dreaming, forced the unwilling horse between the shafts; and Martha, like a marble statue, with hands which never trembled nor hesitated, secured the fastenings in perfect silence. John could not have done this daily business of his in half the time which it took these women to lead the carriage softly out of the stables round by a lane behind the house into the highway. They had no time to seek for the lamps to light them, so Martha carried the lantern in her hand, and held it up into the darkness as they advanced, while Mysie drove on steadily towards Stirling.
They had not gone a mile, Martha continually lifting her lantern and gazing into the gloom, when they heard that some one on a gallopping horse approached them. Martha rose to her feet, and held up the light. It seemed to scare the animal, who suddenly paused, with reins dangling on his neck and foam upon his breast; but he was riderless. “It’s Allenders’ ain horse,” said Mysie, in a strong hissing whisper through her closed teeth, as she touched the bay in the carriage with her whip, and with a leap they proceeded. But Martha desperately caught at the reins of the other horse, and grasped them—she could not, even in her agony for Harry, bear to think that her other children should receive such a dreadful shock as this, while she was not with them to strengthen them. And the exhausted animal went on quietly for a little time—then he began to plunge and rear, and turn towards home. “Let him go—let him go,” again whispered Mysie, now desperate with anxiety and fright. “You canna get lookit at the roadside for hauding him—let him go.”
And Martha did let him go.
Not twenty yards farther on, their horse suddenly came to a dead pause—and there, lying across the highway, was a dark figure, with a battered hat by its side, and the face gleaming ghastly in the light of Martha’s lantern. She was bending over him before Mysie’s first gasp of terror gave her breath; and Martha’s white lips were calling upon God, upon God—but no sound came from them upon the heavy darkness.
And the heart beats faintly still in Harry’s breast, and the blood oozes slowly from the cut upon his brow. She feels it warm upon her hands—this is how she knows it to be blood—as she lifts his death-like face upon her knee; and still as her hand presses upon his heart, and she bends her cheek to his lips to feel if he still breathes, Martha calls upon the name of the Lord. The name—she can say nothing but the name—but in it is all prayer.
And now she lifts him up into her own arms, up to the fierce heart which has throbbed with passionate love for him all his life. Mysie humbly and with terror asks to help her; but Martha, rising from her knee with all her burden in her arms, thrusts away unconsciously the trembling aid, and places him—her boy, her son, poor Harry!—in the carriage like a child. Then through the gloom which no longer needs a light, through the horror of darkness which lies over them like a cloak of iron, pressing down upon their very hearts and hiding the face upon which Martha’s eyes are fixed continually, though she can only feel it where it lies upon her knee—through this night of solemn gloom and terror, which is the end—home!
And now, Harry’s horse neighs and craves admittance at his stable-door; and John, roused out of the sleep from which Mysie had promised to wake him on his master’s return, starts up terrified, and cannot find his lantern nor the key which Martha’s trembling helper has left in the stable-door; and Rose and Agnes rush together, in terror which has no voice, to seek Martha in her room, and finding her gone, flee out into the impenetrable darkness and call to John for the lamps he cannot find, and carry uncovered candles—which, in the damp air, will not burn—to the gate, with a terrible apprehension of stumbling over Harry in their path; but, still, accident—any but the slightest—does not cross their distracted minds, and they never once think of death!
Yet anguish and terrible dread come upon them as they struggle on along the dark way, groping for they know not what, while the darkness blinds their eyes, and chokes their very breath. But far on—far along the road, where there is a little eminence, half a mile away, appears a faint, slowly moving light. Instinctively drawing closer together, they stand, and listen, and watch this speck in the intense gloom. And Agnes does not know that her incoherent prayers are said aloud; nor does Rose, though she remembers words of them after, like the broken words of a dream.
But the light comes nearer; and John, who has turned his master’s horse into the stable, and given him water, comes back, to grope his way to his young mistress on the road, and stand beside her, watching the slow motion of this distant light. Defenceless and open stands the house of Allenders, where children lie asleep, serene and peaceful, worn out with pleasure; and not even the watchers at the gate, amid all their terror and apprehension, have any idea what it is, which comes towards them through the night.
What is it? Mysie, hearing some far-off whisper of voices, holds up her lantern, unwitting that the chief light it throws is upon those two behind. Martha, sitting rigid in the carriage, with a face of deadly whiteness on her knee, and her hand pressing upon the heart of the passive, insensible form—pressing against it, as if the frail life needed to be held fast, lest it should glide away. A shrill cry startles the darkness at their side, and Martha only knows they have reached the gate of Allenders, when she hears Harry’s little gentle wife fall heavily upon the ground, and is startled by the cry of Rose.
Mysie, frightened and exhausted, stopped the carriage. “Drive on!” said Martha, and her lips spoke the words half-a-dozen times before they broke, shrill and loud, upon Mysie’s terrified ear. “Rose, be calm. John, carry Agnes in. I, myself, will care for Harry; he is alive.”
Alive!—but that was all!
Candles stood wasting on the hall table, and the cold black air stole in heavily, damp and chill. Upon the stairs, a little white figure called on Martha and Rose, and shivered, and cast looks of terror on the open door. For Violet had been dreaming of Harry—dreaming terrible dreams—and she could not rest.
“Let me carry him. I’m stronger than you, and I’ll be as tender as a woman,” pleaded the awe-stricken John.
But Martha pushed him aside. “A doctor—a doctor! instantly!”
It was all she could say, as she lifted up her burden.
It was well for Martha that her frame was strong, and hardly strung; for Mysie, who silently assisted, and supported poor Harry’s feet, left still the great weight of his insensible form in Martha’s arms; and Martha felt the strain when it was over—she knew nothing of it now.
Alas, poor Harry!—they laid him on his bed; they clustered round him, the faces which he had seen in his imagination two little hours ago, so fresh and bright. In this room, where the fire was faintly dying, were arranged many little things which Rose had fancied he might want when he came home; but there he lay, with the blood upon his brow, unconscious, silent, with nothing but his heavy breathing to tell them that he was alive.
And immediately they heard the desperate gallop at which John set off, to bring the doctor. The doctor—not Gilbert Allenders, but a respectable surgeon in the neighbourhood—returned with him without delay; and John took especial pains to inform him on the road, that Allenders was “as muckle himsel as I am,” when they parted.
Poor Harry’s leg was broken again; he had sustained some severe internal injuries, and was terribly bruised over his whole frame. The surgeon remained all the night, and did everything it was possible to do, dispatching John to Stirling for assistance before the dawn. But when the grey still morning began to steal into the room, and Harry, faintly conscious, lay moaning on his bed, Agnes clasping her hands in sorrowful entreaty; and lifting up her pathetic eyes to the doctor’s face, asked if there was any hope.
When she asked, she had scarcely any doubt there was. Danger, suffering, even positive agonies of endurance were before him, she saw; but Harry’s wife did not think he could die.
“We have always hope so long as there is life,” said the doctor, turning his head away.
And Agnes gasped and fell again. It was the warrant of death.
“Will he die?” said Martha, crushing her hands together as she too looked, but with eyes that demanded an answer, in the doctor’s face.
He waved his hand, and again turned away. The good man saw the mighty love which would detain and hold this parting soul, and he could not meet its despair.
“Harry will die!”—no one said it; no one spoke those terrible words of doom; but it seemed to them all that the air was heavy with the sentence; and from Martha, who never wearied and never closed her eyes, ministering by his bedside within, to little Lettie crouching close to his door, and praying that God would take her—only take her, and save “my Harry;” there was not one among them who did not carry in their very face this great and terrible doom.
Wiping the deadly dews from his brow, administering to him the almost hourly opiates, which no hand in the house, except her own, not even the surgeon’s, was steady enough to prepare, Martha watched by him night and day. Harry was seldom conscious, seldom able to recognize, or address his nurse; but in his broken ravings were things that touched her to the heart; things of the pure youth—the household life; nothing—they all thanked God for the especial mercy—nothing mingling with these innocent remembrances, of his times of secret sin.