Harry Muir

FAERY QUEEN.

Agnes, with her relieved and lightened spirits, goes cheerfully about her domestic business now, and has learned to drive the little old gig, and sometimes ventures as far as Stirling to make a purchase, and begins to grow a little less afraid of spending money. For some time now, Agnes has given up the “opening”—given it up at Martha’s special desire, and with very little reluctance, and no one does “opening” now at Allenders, except sometimes Martha herself, in her own room, when she is alone. These three years have paid Miss Jean’s thousand pounds, and one of Macalister’s four, and Mr. Macalister is very happy to leave the rest with Miss Allenders, who, when her fourth harvest comes, has promised to herself to pay Mr. Buchanan. For assiduous work, and Martha’s almost stern economy, have done wonders in these years; and the bold Armstrong boasts of his crops, and his cattle now, and is sometimes almost inclined to weep with Alexander, that there is no more unfruitful land to subjugate and reclaim.

But before her fourth harvest time, Martha has intimated to Sir John Dunlop’s factor that it was her brother’s intention to make an offer for the little farm of Oatlands, now again tenantless, and Armstrong does not long weep over his fully attained success; though Oatlands has little reformation to do, compared with Allender Mains. And Harry’s model houses are rising at Maidlin Cross; sagacious people shake their heads, and say Miss Allenders is going too far, and is not prudent. She is not prudent, it is very true—she ventures to the very edge and utmost extent of lawful limits—but she has never ventured beyond that yet, nor ever failed.

And Harry’s name and remembrance lives—strangely exists and acts in the country in which Harry himself was little more than a subject for gossip. To hear him spoken of now, you would rather think of some mysterious unseen person, carrying on a great work by means of agents, that his chosen privacy and retirement may be kept sacred, than of one dead to all the business and labour of this world; and there is a certain mystery and awe about the very house where Harry’s intentions reign supreme, to be considered before everything else. So strong is this feeling, that sometimes an ignorant mind conceives the idea that he lives there yet in perpetual secrecy, and by and bye will re-appear to reap the fruit of all these labours; and Geordie Paxton shakes his head solemnly, and tells his neighbours what the “auld man” says—that Allenders cannot rest in his grave till this work he began is accomplished; and people speak of Harry as an active, existing spirit—never as the dead.

It is more than a year now since Rose’s marriage, and not far from five since Harry’s death, and there is a full family circle round the drawing-room fireside, where Mrs. Charteris has been administering a lively little sermon to Lettie about the extravagance of destroying certain strips of French cambric; (“It would have cost five-and-twenty shillings a yard in my young days,” says the old lady), with which Lettie has been devising some piece of ornamental work for the adornment of Agnes. But Lettie’s execution never comes up to her ideal, and the cambric is destroyed for ever; though Katie Calder, looking on, has made one or two suggestions which might have saved it.

“For you see, my dear, this is waste,” said Mrs. Charteris; “and ye should have tried it on paper first, before you touched the cambric.”

“So I did,” said Lettie, nervously; “but it went all wrong.”

And Rose smiles at the childish answer; and Mrs. Charteris bids Violet sit erect, and keep up her head. Agnes is preparing tea at the table. Martha, with little Sandy kneeling on the rug before her, playing with a box of toys which he places in her lap, sits quietly without her work, in honour of the family party; and Uncle Sandy is telling Katie Calder all kinds of news about her companions in Ayr.

Why is Lettie nervous? Cuthbert at the table is looking over a new magazine, which has just been brought in from Stirling with a supply of other books ordered by their good brother; and constant longing glances to this magazine have had some share in the destruction of Lettie’s cambric. But Lettie is sixteen now, and Agnes thinks she should not be such a child.

“Here is something for you,” says Cuthbert, suddenly. “Listen, we have got a poet among us. I will read you the ballad of the ‘Lady’s Well.’”

But Lettie, growing red and pale, dropping the paper pattern which Mrs. Charteris has cut for her, and casting sidelong, furtive glances round upon them all from under her drooped eyelids, trembles nervously, and can scarcely keep her seat. When Cuthbert comes to the end there is a momentary silence, and Martha looks with wonder on her little sister, and Agnes exclaims in praise of the ballad, and wonders who can possibly know the story so well. Then follows a very free discussion on the subject, and some criticism from Cuthbert; and then Martha suddenly asks: “It is your story, Lettie, and you don’t often show so little interest. How do you like it? Tell us.”

“I—I canna tell,” said Lettie, letting all her bits of cambric fall, and drooping her face, and returning unconsciously to her childish tongue; “for—it was me that wrote it, Martha.”

And Lettie slid down off her chair to the carpet, and concealed the coming tears, and the agitated troubled pleasure, which did not quite realize yet whether this was pain or joy, on Martha’s knee.

Poor Lettie! many an hour has she dreamed by the Lady’s Well—dreamed out grand histories for “us all,” or grander still

But just now the sudden exultation bewilders Lettie; and there is nothing she is so much inclined to do as to run away to her room in the dark, and cry. It would be a great relief.

But the confession falls like lightning upon all the rest. Cuthbert, with a burning face, thinks his own criticism the most stupid in the world. Rose laughs aloud, with a pleasure which finds no other expression so suitable. Agnes, quite startled and astonished, can do nothing but look at the bowed head, which just now she too had reproved for stooping. And Mrs. Charteris holds up her hands in astonishment, and Katie claps hers, and says that she kent all the time. But Martha, with a great flush upon her face, holds Lettie’s wet cheeks in her hands, and bends down over her, but never says a word. Children’s unpremeditated acts, simple words and things have startled Martha more than once of late, as if a deeper insight had come to her; and now there is a great motion in the heart which has passed through tempests innumerable, and Martha cannot speak for the thick-coming thoughts which crowd upon her mind.

That night, standing on the turret, Martha looks out upon the lands of Allenders—the lands which her own labour has cleared of every overpowering burden, and which the same vigorous and unwearied faculties shall clear yet of every encumbrance, if it please God. The moonlight glimmers over the slumbering village of Maidlin—over the pretty houses of poor Harry’s impatient fancy, where Harry’s labourers now dwell peacefully, and know that their improved condition was the will and purpose of the kindly-remembered dead. And the little spire of Maidlin Church shoots up into the sky, guarding the rest of him, whose memory no man dares malign—whose name has come to honour and sweet fame, since it shone upon that tablet in the wall—and not one wish or passing project of whose mind, which ever gained expression in words, remains without fulfilment, or without endeavour and settled purpose to fulfil. And Martha’s thoughts turn back—back to her own ambitious youth and its bitter disappointment—back to the beautiful dawn of Harry’s life—to its blight, and to its end. And this grand resurrection of her buried hopes brings tears to Martha’s eyes, and humility to her full and swelling heart. God, whose good pleasure it once was to put the bar of utter powerlessness upon her ambition, has at last given her to look upon the work of her hands—God, who did not hear, according to her dimmed apprehension, those terrible prayers for Harry which once wrung her very heart, gave her to see him pass away with peace and hope at the end, and has permitted her—her, so greedy of good fame and honour—to clear and redress his sullied name. And now has been bestowed on Martha this child—this child, before whom lies a gentle glory, sweet to win—a gracious, womanly, beautiful triumph, almost worthy of an angel—and the angels know the dumb, unspeakable humility of thanksgiving which swells in Martha’s heart.

So to all despairs, agonies, bitternesses, of the strong heart which once stormed through them all, but which God has chastened, exercised, at length blessed, comes this end. Harvest and seedtime in one combination—hopes realized, and hopes to come; and all her children under this quiet roof, sleeping the sleep of calm, untroubled rest—all giving thanks evening and morning for fair days sent to them out of the heavens, and sorrow charmed into sweet repose, and danger kept away. But though Martha’s eyes are blind with tears, and her heart calls upon Harry—Harry, safe in the strong hand of the Father, where temptation and sorrow can reach him never more—the same heart rises up in the great strength of joy and faith, and blesses God: Who knoweth the beginning from the end—who maketh His highway through the flood and the flame—His highway still, terrible though it be—who conducts into the pleasant places, and refreshes the failing heart with hope; and the sleep which He gives to His beloved, fell sweet and deep that night upon the wearied heart of Martha Muir.

THE END.

LONDON:
Printed by Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street.