“Are ye who present this paper ordained elders of the Kirk?” asked Cameron of the leaders, glowering angrily at them.
“We are,” responded Nathan Gemmell, stoutly.
“And ye dare to bring a railing accusation against the ministers of your Presbytery?”
“We are free men—ruling elders every one. You, on your part, are but teaching elders, and, save for the usurpation of the State, ye are noways in authority over us,” was the answer.
“And who are they for whom ye profess to speak?” continued Cameron, looking frowningly upon Drumglass and his fellows.
“They are here to speak for themselves!” cried Nathan Gemmell, and as he waved his hand, the kirk was filled from end to end with stalwart men, who stood up rank behind rank, all very grave and quiet.
I saw the ministers cower together. This was not at all what they had bargained for.
“We are plainly to be deforced and overawed,” said Cameron. “Let us disperse to-day and meet to-morrow in the Kirk of Crossmichael over the water.”
And lo! it was done—even as their leader said. They summoned me to stand at their bar on the morrow in the Kirk of Crossmichael, that I might receive my doom.
But quietly, as before, I told them that I refused their court, that I would in no wise submit to their sentence, but would abide among my people both to-morrow and all the to-morrows, to do the duty which had been laid upon me, in spite of anathema, deposition, excommunication. “For,” said I, “I have a warrant that is higher than yours. So far as I may, in a man’s weakness and sin, I will be faithful to that mandate, to my conscience, and to my God.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
MARY GORDON’S LAST WORD.
The next day was the 30th of December, a day of bitter frost, so that the Dee froze over, and the way which had been broken for the boats to ferry the Presbytery across from the dangerous bounds of Balmaghie was again filled with floating ice.
The Kirk of Crossmichael sits, like that of Balmaghie, on a little green hill above Dee Water. One House of Prayer fronts the other, and the white kirkyard stones greet each other across the river, telling the one story of earth to earth. And every Sabbath day across the sluggish stream two songs of praise go up to heaven in united aspiration towards one Eternal father.
But this 30th of December there was for Quintin MacClellan small community of lofty fellowship across the water in Crossmichael. It was to me of all days the day bitterest and blackest. I have indeed good cause to remember it.
Right well was I advised that, so far as the ministers of the Presbytery were concerned, there was no hope of any outcome favourable to me. They had only been scared from their prey for a moment by the stern threatening of the folk of the parish. The People’s Paper in particular had frightened them like a sentence of death. But now they were free to make an end.
My brother Hob was keen to head a band pledged to keep them out of Crossmichael Kirk also. But I forbade him to cross the water.
“Keep your own kirk and your own parish bounds if ye like, but meddle not with those of your neighbours!” I told him. “Besides ye would only drive them to another place, where yet more bitterly they would finish their appointed work!”
But though the former stress of trial was over, this day of quiet was far harder to bear than the day before. For, then, with the excitation of battle, the plaudits of the people, the quick necessities of verbal defence against many adversaries, my spirits were kept up. But now there was none in the manse beside myself, and I took to wandering up and down the little sequestered kirk-loaning, thinking how that by this time the Presbytery was met to speed my doom, and that the pleasant place which knew me now would soon know me no more for ever.
As I lingered at the road-end, thinking how much I would have given for a heartening word, and vaguely resolving to betake me over to the house of Drumglass, where at the least I was sure of companionship and consolation, I chanced to cast my eyes to the southward, and there along the light grey riverside track I beheld a lady riding.
As she came nearer, I saw that it was none other than Mistress Mary Gordon. I thought I had never seen her look winsomer—a rounded lissom form, a perfect seat, a dainty and well-ordered carriage.
I stood still where I was and waited for her to pass me. I had my hat in my hand, and in my heart I counted on nothing but that she should ride by me as though she saw me not.
But on the contrary, she reined her horse and sat waiting for me to speak to her.
So I went to her bridle-rein and looked up at the face, and lo! it was kindlier than ever I had seen it before, with a sort of loving pity on it which I found it very hard to bear.
“Will you let me walk by your side a little way?” I asked of her. For as we had parted without a farewell, so on this bitterest day we met again without greeting.
“My Lady Mary,” I said at last, “I have gone through much since I went out from your house at Earlstoun. I have yet much to win through. We parted in anger but let us meet in peace. I am a man outcast and friendless, save for these foolish few in this parish who to their cost have made my quarrel theirs.”
At this she looked right kindly down upon me and paused a little before she answered.
“Quintin,” she said, “there is no anger in my heart anywhere. There is only a great wae. I have come from the place of Balmaghie where my cousin Kate of Lochinvar waits her good father’s passing.”
“And ride you home to the Earlstoun alone?” I asked.
“Aye,” she said, a little wistfully. And the saying cheered me. For this river way was not the girl’s straight road homeward, and it came to me that mayhap Mary Gordon had wished to meet and comfort me in my sorrow.
“My father is abroad, we know not well where,” she said, “or doubtless he would gladly support you in the way that you have chosen. Perhaps your way is not my way, but it must be a good way of its kind, the way of a man’s conscience.”
She reached down a hand to me, which I took and pressed gratefully enough.
It was then that we came in sight of the white house of Drumglass sitting above the water-meadows. At the first glimpse of it the Lady Mary drew away her hand from mine.
“Is it true,” she said, looking at the blue ridges of Cairnsmore in the distance, “that which I have been told, that you are to wed a daughter of that house?”
I inclined my head without speech. I knew that the bitterest part of my punishment was now come upon me.
“And did you come straight from the Earlstoun to offer her also your position, your well-roofed manse, your income good as that of any laird?”
We had stopped in a sheltered place by the river where the hazel bushes are many and the gorse grows long and rank, mingling with the bloom and the fringing bog-myrtle.
“My Lady Mary,” said I, after a pause, “I offered her not anything. I had nothing to offer. But in time of need she let me see the warmth of her heart and—I had none other comfort!”
“Then upon this day of days why are you not by her side, that her love may ease the smart of your bitter outcasting?”
“In yonder kirk mine enemies work my doom,” said I, pointing over the water, “and ere another sun rise I shall be no more minister of Balmaghie, but a homeless man, without either a rooftree or a reeking ingle. I have nothing to offer any woman. Why should I claim this day any woman’s love?”
“Ah,” she said, giving me the strangest look, “it is her hour. For if she loves you, she would fly to-day to share your dry crust, your sapless bite. See,” she cried, stretching out her hand with a large action, “if Mary Gordon loved a man, she would follow him in her sark to the world’s end. If so be his eyes had looked the deathless love into hers, his tongue told of love, love, only of love. Ah, that alone is worth calling love which feeds full on the scorns of life and grows lusty on black misfortune!”
“Lady Mary——” I began.
But she interrupted me, dashing her hand furtively to her face.
She pointed up towards the house of Drumglass.
“Yonder lies your way, Quintin MacClellan! Go to the woman you love—who loves you.”
She lifted the reins from the horse’s neck and would have started forward, but again I had gotten her hand. Yet I only bent and kissed it without word, reverently and sadly as one kisses the brow of the dead.
She moved away without anger and with her eyes downcast. But on the summit of a little hill she half turned about in her saddle and spoke a strange word.
“Quintin,” she said, “wherefore could ye not have waited? Wherefore kenned ye no better than to take a woman at her first word?”
And with that she set the spurs to her beast and went up the road toward the ford at the gallop, till almost I feared to watch her.
For a long time I stood sadly enough looking after her. And I grant that my heart was like lead within me. My spirit had no power in it. I cried out to God to let me die. For it was scarce a fair thing that she should have spoken that word now when it was too late.
CHAPTER XXV.
BEHIND THE BROOM.
But this 30th of December had yet more in store for me. The minting die was yet to be dinted deeper into my heart.
For, as I turned me about to go back the way I came, there by the copse side, where the broom grew highest, stood Jean Gemmell, with a face suddenly drawn thin, grey-white and wan like the melting snow.
“Jean!” I cried, “what do ye there?”
She tried to smile, but her eyes had a fixed and glassy look, and she seemed to be mastering herself so that she might speak.
I think that she had a speech prepared in her heart, for several times she strove to begin, and the words were always the same. But at last all that she could say was no more than this, “You love her?”
And with a little hand she pointed to where the Lady Mary had disappeared. I could see it shaking like a willow leaf as she held it out.
“Jean,” said I, kindly as I could, “what brought you so far from home on such a bitter day? It is not fit. You will get your death of cold.”
“I have gotten my death,” she said, with a little gasping laugh, “I have gotten my sentence. Do not I take it well?”
And she tried to smile again.
Then I went quickly to her, and caught her by the hand, and put my arm about her. For I feared that she would fall prostrate where she stood. Notwithstanding, she kept on smiling through unshed tears, and never for a moment took her eyes off my face.
“I heard what you and she said. Yes, I listened. A great lady would not have listened. But I am no better than a little cot-house lass, and I spied upon you. Yes, I hid among the broom. You will never forgive me.”
I tried to hush her with kind words, but somehow they seemed to pass her by. I think she did not even hear them.
“You love her,” she said; “yes, I know it. Jonita told me that from the first—that I could never be your wife, though I had led you on. Yes, I own it. I tried to win you. A great lady would not. But I did. I threw myself in your way. Shamelessly I cast myself—Jonita says it—into your arms!——
“Ah, God!” she broke off with a little frantic cry, sinking her head between her palms quickly, and then flinging her arms down. “And would I not have cast myself under your feet as readily, that you might trample me? I know I am not long for this world. I ken that I have bartered away eternity for naught. I have lied to God. And why not? You that are a minister, tell me why not? Would not I gladly barter all heaven for one hour of your love on earth? You may despise me, but I loved you. Yes, she is great, fair, full of length of days and pride of life—the Lord of Earlstoun’s daughter. Yet—and yet—and yet, she could not love you better than I. In that I defy her!
“And she shall have you—yes, I will give you up to her. For that is the one way an ignorant lass can love. They tell me that by to-morrow you will be no longer minister. You will be put out of the manse like a bird out of a harried nest. And at first I was glad when I heard it. For (thought I) he will come and tell me. We will be poor together. She said the truth, for indeed she knoweth somewhat, this Lady Mary—‘Love is not possessions!’ No, but it is possessing. And I had but one—but one! And that she has taken away from me.”
She lifted her kerchief to her lips, for all suddenly a fit of coughing had taken her.
In a moment she drew it away, glanced at it quickly, and lo! it was stained with a clear and brilliant red.
Then she laughed abruptly, a strange, hollow-sounding little laugh.
“I am glad—glad,” she said. “Ah! this is my warrant for departure. Well do I ken the sign, for I mind when my brother Andrew saw it first. Quintin, dear lad, you will get her yet, and with honour.”
“Come, Jean,” said I, gently as I could, “the air is shrewd. You are ill and weak. Lean on my arm, and I will take you home.”
She looked up at me with dry, brilliant eyes. There was nothing strange about them save that the lids seemed swollen and unnaturally white.
“Quintin,” she made answer, smiling, “it was foolish from the first, was it not, lad o’ my love? Did you ever say a sweet thing to me, like one that comes courting a lass in the gloaming? Say it now to me, will you not? I would like to hear how it would have sounded.”
I was silent. I seemed to have no words to answer her with.
She laughed a little.
“I forgot. Pardon me, Quintin. You are in trouble to-day—deep trouble. I should not add to it. It is I who should say loving things to you. But then—then—you would care more for flouts and anger from her than for all the naked sweetness of poor Jean Gemmell’s heart.”
And the very pitifulness of her voice drew a cry of anger out of my breast. At the first sound of it she stopped and leaned back in my arms to look into my face. Then she put up her hand very gently and patted me tenderly on the cheek like one that comforts a fretful fractious child.
“I vex you,” she said, “you that have overmuch to vex you. But I shall not vex you long. See,” she said, “there is the door. Yonder is my father standing by it. He is looking at us under his hand. There is Jonita, too, and your brother Hob. Shall we go and tell them that this is all a mistake, that there is to be no more between us?—that we are free—free, both of us—you to wed the Lady Mary, I to keep my tryst—to keep my tryst—with Death!”
At the last words her voice sank to a whisper.
Something broke in her throat and seemed to choke her. She fell back in my arms with her kerchief again to her mouth.
They saw us from the door, and Alexander-Jonita came flying towards us like the wind over the short grass of the meadow.
Jean took her kerchief away, without looking at it this time. She lifted her eyes to mine and smiled very sweetly.
“I am glad—glad,” she whispered; “do not be sorry, Quintin. But do just this one thing for me, will you, lad—but only this one thing. Do not tell them. Let us pretend. Would it be wrong, think you, to pretend a little that you love me? You are a minister, and should know. But, if you could—why, it would be so sweet. And then it would not be for long, Quintin.”
She spoke coaxingly, and withal most tenderly.
“Jean, I do love you!” I cried.
And for the first time in my life I meant it. She seemed to be like my sister Anna to me.
By this time, seeing Jonita coming, she had recovered herself somewhat and taken my arm. At my words she pressed it a little, and smiled.
“Oh,” she said, “you need not begin yet. Only before them. I want them to think that you love me a little, you see. Is it not small and foolish of me?”
“But I do—I do truly love you, Jean,” I cried. “Did you ever know me to tell a lie?”
She smiled again and nodded, like one who smiles at a child who has well learned his lesson.
Alexander-Jonita came rushing up.
“Jean, Jean, where have you been? What is the matter?”
“I have been meeting Quintin,” she said, with a bright and heavenly look; “he has been telling me how he loves me.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
JEAN GEMMELL’S BARGAIN WITH GOD.
Yet more grimly bitter than the day of December the thirtieth fell the night. I wandered by the bank of the river, where the sedges rustled lonely and dry by the marge, whispering and chuckling to each other that a forlorn, broken man was passing by. A “smurr” of rain had begun to fall at the hour of dusk, and the slight ice of the morning had long since broken up. The water lisped and sobbed as the wind of winter lapped at the ripples, and the peat-brew of the hills took its sluggish way to the sea.
Over against me, set on its hill, I saw the lighted windows of the kirk of Crossmichael. Well I knew what that meant. Mine enemies were sitting there in conclave. They would not rise till I was no more minister of the Kirk of Scotland. They would thrust me out, and whither should I go? To what folk could I minister—an it were not, like Alexander-Jonita, to the wild beasts of the hills? A day before I should have been elated at the thought. But now, for the first time, I saw myself unworthy.
Who was I, that thought so highly of myself, that I should appoint me Standard Bearer of the noble banner of the Covenants. A man weak as other men! Nay, infinitely weaker and worse. The meanest hind who worked in the fields to bring home four silver shillings a week to his wife and bairns was better than I.
A Standard Bearer! I laughed now at the thought, and the rushes by the water’s edges chuckled and sneered in answering derision.
A Standard Bearer, God wot! Renegade and traitor, rather; a man who could not keep his plain vows, whose erring and wandering heart went after vanities; one that had broken a maiden’s heart—unwitting and unintending, did he pretend? Faugh! that was what every Lovelace alleged as his excuse.
I had thought myself worthy to do battle for the purity of the Kirk of my fathers. I had pretended that her independence, her position and her power were dearer than life to me. I saw it all now. It was mine own place and position I had been warring for.
Also had I not set myself above my brethren? Had I not said, “Get far from me, for am I not holier than thou?”
And God, who does not pay His wages on Saturday night, had waited. So now He came to me and said, “Who art thou, Quintin MacClellan, that thou shouldst dare to touch the ark of God?”
And as I looked across the dark waters I saw the light burn clearer and clearer in the kirk of Crossmichael. They were lighting more candles that they might see the better to make an end.
“God speed them,” cried I, in the darkness; “they are doing God’s work. For they could do nothing except it were permitted of Him. Shall I step into the boat that rocks and clatters with the little wavelets leaping against its side? Shall I call John the ferryman and go over and make my submission before them all?”
I could tell them what an unworthy, forsworn, ill-hearted man I am.
Thus I stood by the riverside. Almost I had lifted up my voice to cry aloud that I would make this acknowledgment and reparation, when through the darkness I saw a shape approach.
A voice said in my ear, “Come—Jean Gemmell is taken suddenly ill. She would see you at once.”
Then I was aware that this 30th of December was to be my great day of judgment and wrath, when the six vials were to be loosed upon me. I knew that the Lord whose name I had taken in vain was that day to smite me with a great smiting, because, being unworthy, I had put out my hand to stay the ark of the covenant of God.
“Hob,” said I, for it was my brother who had come to summon me, “is she yet alive?”
“Alive!” said he, abruptly. “Why, bless the man, she wants you to marry her.”
“Marry——” said I, “I am a minister of the kirk. I have ever spoken against irregular marriages. How can I marry without another minister?”
Hob laughed a short laugh. He never thought much of my love-making.
“Better marry than burn!” quoth he, abruptly. “Mr. Hepburn, of Buittle Kirk, is here. He came over to hearten you in the day of your adversity.”
Then I recognised the hand of God in the thing and bowed my head.
So in an aching expectant silence, hearing only a poor divided heart pulse within me, I followed Hob over the moor, and up by the sides of the frozen mosses to the house of Drumglass. He knew the way blindfold, which shows what a wonderful gift he had among the hills. For I myself had gone that way ten times for his once. Yet that night, save for my brother, I had stumbled to my hurt among the crags.
Presently we came to the entering in of the farmyard. Lights were gleaming here and there, and I saw some of the servant men clustered at the stable door.
There was a hush of expectation about the place, as if they were waiting for some notable thing which was about to happen.
Nathan Gemmell met me in the outer hall, and shook me by the hand silently, like a chief mourner at a funeral. Then he led the way into the inner room. Hepburn came forward also, and took my hand. He was a man of dark and determined countenance, yet with singularly lovable eyes which now and then unexpectedly beaconed kindliness.
Jean sat on a great chair, and beside her stood Alexander-Jonita.
When I came in Jean rose firmly to her feet. She looked about her with a proud look like one that would say, “See, all ye people, this is he!”
“Quintin!” she said, and laying her thin fingers on my shoulders, she looked deep into my eyes.
Never did I meet such a look. It seemed to be compound of life and death, of the love earthly and the love eternal.
“Good friends,” she said, calmly turning to them as though she had been the minister and accustomed to speak in the hearing of men, “I have summoned my love hastily. I have somewhat to say to him. Will you leave us alone for ten minutes? I have a word to say in his ear alone. It is not strange, is it, at such a time?”
And she smiled brightly upon them, while I stood dumb and astonished. For I knew not whence the lass, ordinarily so still and fond, had gotten her language. She spoke as one who has long made up his mind, and to whom fit and prepared words come without effort.
When they were gone she sat down on the chair again, and, taking my hand, motioned me to kneel down beside her.
Then she laid her hand to my hair and touched it lightly.
“Quintin,” she said, “you and I have not long to sit sweethearting together. I must say quickly that which I have to say. I am, you will peradventure think, a bold, immodest lass. You remember it was I who courted you, compelled you, followed you, spied on you. But then, you see, I loved you. Now I want to ask you to marry me!”
“Nay,” she said, interrupting my words more with her hand than her voice, “misjudge me not. I am to die—to die soon. It has been revealed to me that I have bartered the life eternal for this. And, since so it is, I desire to drink the sweetness of it to the cup’s bottom. I have made a bargain with God. I have prayed, and I have promised that if He will put it in your heart to wed with me for an hour, I will take with gratitude and thankfulness all that lies waiting over there, beyond the Black River.”
She waved her hand down toward the Dee water.
I smiled and nodded hopefully and comfortingly to her. At that moment I felt that nothing was too great for me to do. And it mattered little when I married her. I had ever meant to be true to her—save in that which I could not help, the love of my heart of hearts, which, having been another’s from the beginning was not mine to give.
Jean Gemmell smiled.
“I thank you, Quintin,” she said, “this is like you, and better than I deserve. Had it been a matter of days or weeks I would never have troubled you. But ’tis only the matter of an hour or two!”
She paused a little, stroking my head fondly.
“And afterwards you will say, remembering me, ‘Poor young thing, she loved me, loved me truly!’ Ah, Quintin, I think I should have made you a good wife. Love helps all things, they say. Put your hand below my head, Quintin. Tell me again that you love me. Sweetheart” (now she was whispering), “do you know I have to tell you all that you should say to me? Is that fair—that I should make love to you and to myself too?”
I groaned aloud.
“God help us, Jean,” I said, “we shall yet be happy together.” And at the moment I meant it. I felt that a lifetime of sacrifice would not make up for such love.
She patted me on the head pacifyingly as if I had been a fractious bairn that needed humouring.
“Yes, yes, then,” she said, soothingly, “we shall be happy, you and I. What was it you said the other Sabbath day? I knew not what it meant then. But methinks I begin to understand now—‘passing the love of woman!’”
The cough shook her, but she strove to hide it, going on quickly with her words like one who has no time to lose.
“That is the way I love you, Quintin, ‘passing the love of women,’ Why, I do not even grudge you to her.”
She smiled again, and said cheerfully, “Now we will call them in.”
I was going to the door to do it according to her word, for that night we all obeyed her as though she had been the Queen. I was almost at the door when she rose all trembling to her feet and held out her arms entreatingly.
“Quintin, Quintin, kiss me once,” she said, “once before they come.”
I ran to her and kissed her on the brow. “Oh, not there! On the mouth. It is my right. I have paid for it!” she cried. And so I did.
Then she drew down my head and set her lips to my ear. “I lied to you, laddie—yes, I lied. I do grudge you to her. Oh, I do, I do!”
And for the first time one mighty sob caught her by the throat and rent her.
Nevertheless she straightened herself with her hand to her breast, like a wounded soldier who salutes his general ere he dies, and commanded her emotion. “Yes,” she said, looking upwards and speaking as if to one unseen, “I will play the game fairly; I have promised and I will not repine, nor go back on my word!”
She turned to me, “It is not a time for bairn’s greeting. We are to be married, you and I, are we not? Call them in.”
And she laughed a little bashfully and fitly as the folk came in and smiled to one and the other as they entered.
Then to me she beckoned.
“Come and hold my hand all the time. Clasp my fingers firmly. Do not let them go lest I slip away too soon, Quintin. I need your hand in mine—for to-night, Quintin, just only for this one night!”
Even thus Jean Gemmell and I were married.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
And after all was done I laid her on her bed, and she rested there till near the dawning with my hand firmly held in hers. Mostly her eyes were shut, but every now and then she would smile up at me like one that encourages another in a weary wait.
Once she said, “Isn’t it sweet?”
And then again, and near to the gloaming of the morn, she whispered, “It will not be long now, laddie mine?”
Nor was it, for within an hour the soul of Jean Gemmell went out in one long loving look, and with the faintest murmur of her lips which only my ear could catch—“Passing the love of women,” she said, and again—“passing the love of women!”
And it was my hand alone that spread the fair white cloth over her dead face which still had the smile upon it, and over the pale lips that she had asked me to kiss.
Then, as I stumbled blindly down the hill, I looked beyond the dark and sluggish river rolling beneath over to the Kirk of Crossmichael. And even as I stood looking, the lights in the windows went out. It was done. I was a man in one day widowed, forsaken, outcast.
But more than kirk or ministry or even Christ’s own covenant, I thought upon Jean Gemmell.
CHAPTER XXVII.
RUMOUR OF WAR.
(Connect and Addition by Hob MacClellan.)
The crown had indeed been set upon the work. The business, as said the Right Reverend Presbytery, was finished, and with well-satisfied hearts the brethren went back to their manses.
It was long ere in his private capacity my brother could lift up his head or speak to us that were about him. The dark day and darker night of the 30th of December had sorely changed him. He was like one standing alone, the world ranged against him. Then I that was his brother according to the flesh watched him carefully. Never did he pace by the rivers of waters nor yet climb the heathery steeps of the Dornal without a companion. There were times when almost we feared for his reason. But Quintin MacClellan, the deposed minister of Balmaghie, was not the stuff of which self-slayers are made.
When it chanced that I could not accompany him, I had nothing to do but arrange with Alexander-Jonita, and she would take the hill or the water-edge, silent as a shadow, tireless as a young deer. And with her to guard I knew that my brother was safe.
Never did he know that any watched him, for during these days he was a man walking with shadows. I think he never ceased blaming himself for poor Jean’s death. At any rate Quintin MacClellan was a changed man for long after that night.
My mother came down from Ardarroch to bide a while with him, and at orra times he aroused himself somewhat to talk with her. But when she began to speak of the ill-set Presbytery, or even of the more familiar things at home—the nowt, the horse, and the kindly kye—I, who watched every shade on Quintin’s face as keenly as if he had been my sweetheart, knew well that his mind was wandering. And sometimes I thought it was set on the dead lass, and sometimes I thought that he mourned for the public misfortune which had befallen him.
To the outer world, the world of the parish and the countryside, he kept ever a brave face. He preached with yet more mighty power and acceptance. The little kirk was crowded Sabbath after Sabbath. Those who had once spoken against him did it no more openly in the parish of Balmaghie.
With calm front and assured carriage he went about his duties, as though there were no Presbyteries nor forces military to carry out his sentence of removal and deposition.
Only the chief landowners wished him away. For mostly they were men of evil life, rough-spoken and darkly tarred with scandal. My brother had been over-faithful with them in reproof. For it was of Quintin that an old wife had said, “God gie thee the fear o’ Himsel’, laddie! For faith, ye haena the fear o’ man aboot ye!”
But there were others who could take steps as well as Presbyteries and officers of the law.
Alexander-Jonita rode like a storm-cloud up and down the glen and listed the lads to do her will, as indeed they were ever all too ready to do. Her father, with several of the elders, men grave and reverend, met to concert measures for defending the bounds, lest the enemy should try to oust their minister out of his “warm nest,” as they called the manse which cowered down under lee of the kirk.
So it came about that there was scarce a man in Balmaghie who was not enrolled to protect the passage perilous of kirk and manse. The parish became almost like a defended city or an entrenched camp. There were watchers upon the hilltops everywhere. Week-day and Sabbath-day they abode there. All the fords were guarded, the river-fronts patrolled, for save on the wild and mountainous side our parish is surrounded by waters deep and broad or else rapid and dangerous.
Did a couple of ministers approach from Crossmichael to “preach the kirk vacant” their boat was pushed back again into the stream, and a hundred men stood in line to prevent a landing. Yet all was carried out with decency and order, as men do who have taken a great matter in hand and are prepared to stand within their danger.
The elders also held mysterious colloquies with men from a distance, who went and came to their houses under cloud of night. There was discipline and drill by Gideon Henderson and other former officers of the Scotch Dutch regiments. I remember a muster on the meadows of the Duchrae at which a stern-faced man, with his face half muffled, came and put us through our duty. I knew by the tones of his voice that this was none other than the Colonel Sir William Gordon who had marched with us to Edinburgh in the great convention year.
But the climax was yet to come.
It was in July that the Sheriff had first tried in vain to land at the Kirk-Knowe in order to expel my brother from his manse. But a hundred men had started up out of the bushes, and with levelled pistols turned the boat back again to the further shore.
Next there was a gathering of the Presbytery at Cullenoch, under the wing of the Laird of Balmaghie, to concert measures with the other landowners, who in time past had often smarted under Quintin’s rebuke. It was to be held at the inn, and the debate was to settle many things.
But alas! when the day came every room in the hostel was filled with armed men, so that there was no place for the reverend fathers and their terrified hosts.
So without in the wide spaces where four roads meet, the Presbyters one by one addressed the people, if addresses they could be called, which were interrupted at every other sentence.
It was Warner, the father of the Presbytery, who was speaking when I arrived. He was one of those who had sat safe and snug under the King’s indulgences and agreements in the days of persecution.
“People of Balmaghie,” he cried, “hearken to me. Ye are supporting a man that is no minister, a man outed and deposed. Your children will be unbaptized, your marriages unblessed, yourselves excommunicated, because of this man!”
“Maister Warner,” cried a voice from the crowd, which I knew for that of Drumglass, “I am auld eneuch to mind how ye were a member in the Presbytery at Sunday-wall that sat on Richard Cameron in order to depose him. Now ye wad spend your persecuting breath on our young minister. Gang hame, man, and think on your latter end!”
But, indeed, as half-a-dozen bare swords were within a yard of his nose, Mr. Warner might quite as well have thought on his latter end where he was.
Then it was Cameron’s turn. But him the people would not listen to on any protest, because he had been accounted chief agent and mover in the process of law against their minister.
“Better ye had died at Ayrsmoss wi’ you twa brithers,” they cried to him; “man, ye’ll never win nearer to them than Kirkcudbright town. And Guid kens that’s an awesome lang road frae heeven!”
To Telfair the Ghost-seer of Rerrick, they cried, when he strove to say a word, “What for did ye no bring the deil wi’ ye in a bag? Man, ye are ower great wi’ him. But there’s neither witch nor warlock can look at MacClellan’s cup nor come near our minister. It’s easy seen Quintin MacClellan wasna in the Presbytery when the deil played sic pliskies doon aboot the Rerrick shores.”
Then came Boyd, who in his day had proclaimed King William at Glasgow Cross. But he found that an easier task than to shout down the cause of righteousness at the Four Roads of Pluckemin.
“You pay overmuch attention to the words of a man without honour!” This was his beginning, heard over all the crowd to the very midst of the street, for he had a great voice, which in a better cause would have been listened to like the voice of an apostle.
“Have ye paid back the siller the poor hill-folk spent on your colleging?” they asked him. “Our minister paid for his ain schooling.”
The question was a feathered arrow in the white, but Boyd avoided it.
“Your minister is a man that should be ashamed to enter a kirk and preach the Gospel. Who would associate with the like of Quintin MacClellan?”
“Of a certainty not traitors and turncoats!” cried a deep voice in the background, toward which all turned in amazement.
It was that of Sir Alexander Gordon of Earlstoun, the reputed head of the Societies, whose boast it had been that he could call seven thousand men to arms in the day of trouble.
I saw Boyd pale to the lips at sight of him.
“I do not argue with sectaries!” he stammered, turning on his heel.
“Nor I with knavish deceivers,” cried Alexander Gordon, “of whom there are two here—Andrew Cameron and William Boyd. With this right hand I paid them the golden money for their education, wrung from the instant needs of poor hill folk who had lost their all, and who depended oftentime on charity for their bite of bread. From men attainted, from men earning in foreign lands the bitter bread of exile, from men and women imprisoned, shilling by shilling, penny by penny, that money came. It was ill-spent on men like these. William Boyd and Andrew Cameron swore solemn oaths. They took upon them the unbreakable and immutable Covenants. In time they became ministers, and we looked for words of light and wisdom and guidance from them. But we of the Faithful Remnant looked in vain. For lo! Cæsar sat upon his throne, and right gladly they bowed the knee. They licked the gold from his garments like honey. They mumbled his shoe-string that he might graciously permit them to sit at ease in his high places.
“Bah!” he cried, so that his voice was heard miles off on the hill-tops, “out upon all such cowards and traitors! And now, folk of this parish, will ye let such scurril loons persuade you to give up your true and faithful minister, on whose tongue is the word of truth, and in whose heart is no fear of the face of any man?”
The frightened Presbyters melted before him, some of them swarming off with the men of evil life—the lairds and heritors of the parish. Others mounted their horses and rode homeward as if the devil of Rerrick himself had been after them.
Thus was ended the Disputation of Cullenoch near to Clachanpluck, in the shaming of those that withstood us.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ALEXANDER-JONITA’S VICTORY.
But as for my brother, concerning whom was all this pother, he took no hand at all in the matter. If the people wished him to abide with them, they must maintain him there. Contrariwise, if the Master he served had other fields of labour, he would break down dykes and make plain his path before him.
But as it was, he went about as usual with his pilgrim staff in his hand visiting the sick, succouring the poor, lifting up the head of weakness and pain.
On the day when the Sheriff came with his men to the water-edge, Quintin saw from the manse window a little cloud of men running hither and thither upon the river-bank.
“There is surely some great ploy of fishing afoot!” he said, quietly, and so let his eyes fall again contentedly upon his book.
“Faith, ’tis easy to hoodwink a learned man,” cried Alexander-Jonita when I told her.
It was at this time that I grew to love the lass yet more and more. For she flashed hither and thither, and whereas she had been no great one for housework hitherto, now since her sister’s death she would be much more indoors. Also, with the old man her father, she was exceedingly patient in his oftentime garrulity. But specially in the defence of the parish on Quintin’s behalf against the civil arm, she was indefatigable.
Often she would go dressed as a heartsome young callant, with clothes that her own needle had made, her own deft fingers fashioned. And in cavalier attire, I tell you, Alexander-Jonita took the eyes of lass and lady. Once, when we rode by Dee-bridge, a haughty dame sent back her servant to ask of me, whom she took to be a man-in-waiting, the name of the handsome young gentleman I served.
I replied with dignity, “’Tis the young Lord Alexander Johnstone,” which was as near the truth as I could come at a quick venture.
In that crowning ploy of which I have still to tell, it was Alexander-Jonita who played the leading part.
The Sheriff, being admonished for his slackness by his legal superiors, and complained of by the reverend court of the Presbytery, resolved to make a bold push for it, and at one blow to take final possession of kirk and manse.
So he summoned the yeomanry of the province to meet him under arms at the village of Causewayend, which stands near the famous and beautiful loch of Carlinwark, on a certain day, under penalties of fine and imprisonment. And about a hundred men on horseback, all well armed and mounted, drew together on the day appointed. A fine breezy day in August, it was—when many of them doubtless came with small good-will from their corn-fields, where a winnowing wind searched the stooks till the ripe grain rustled with the parched well-won sound that is music to the farmer’s ear.
But if the news of gathering of the yeomanry had been spread by summons, far more wide and impressive had been the counter call sent throughout the parish of Balmaghie.
For farmer and cotter alike knew that matters had come to the perilous pinch with us, and if it should be that the civil powers were not turned aside now, all the past watching and sacrifice would prove in vain.
It was about noon when the sentinels reported that the Sheriff and his hundred horsemen had crossed Dee water, and were advancing by rapid stages.
Now it was Jonita’s plan to draw together the women also—for what purpose we did not see. But since she had summoned them herself it was not for any of us young men to say her nay.
So by the green roadside, a mile from the manse and kirk, Jonita had her hundred and fifty or more women assembled, old and young, mothers of families and wrinkled grandmothers thereof, young maidens with the blushes on their cheeks and the snood yet unloosed about their hair.
Faith, spite of the grandmothers, many a lad of us would have desired to be of that company that day! But Alexander-Jonita would have none of us. We were to keep the castle, so she commanded, with gun and sword. We were to sit in our trenches about the kirk, and let the women be our advance guard.
So when the trampling of horses was heard from the southward, and the cavalcade came to the narrows of the way, “Halt!” cried Alexander-Jonita suddenly. And leaping out of the thicket like a young roe of the mountains, she seized the Sheriff’s bridle rein. At the same moment her hundred and fifty women trooped out and stood ranked and silent right across the path of the horsemen.
“What do ye here? Let go, besom!” cried the Sheriff.
“Go back to those that sent ye, Sheriff,” commanded Alexander-Jonita, “for an’ ye will put out our minister, ye must ride over us and wet the feet of your horses in our women’s blood.”
“Out upon you, lass! Let men do their work!” cried the Sheriff, who was a jolly, rollicking man, and, moreover, as all knew, like most sheriffs, not unkindly disposed to the sex.
“Leave you our minister alone to do his work. I warrant he will not meddle with you,” answered Alexander-Jonita.
“Faith, but you are a well-plucked one!” cried the Sheriff, looking down with admiration on her, “but now out of the way with you, for I must forward with my work.”
“Sir,” said the lass, “ye may turn where ye are, and ride back whence ye came, for we will by no means let you proceed one step nearer to the kirk of Balmaghie this day!”
“Forward!” cried the Sheriff, loudly, to his men, thinking to intimidate the women.
“Stand firm, lasses!” cried Alexander-Jonita, clinging to the Sheriff’s bridle-rein.
And the company of yeomanry stood still, for, being mostly householders and fathers of families, they could not bring themselves to charge a company of women, as it might be their own wives and daughters.
“Forward!” cried the Sheriff again.
“Aye, forward, gallant cavaliers!” cried Alexander-Jonita, “forward, and ye shall have great honour, Sheriff! More famous than my Lord Marlborough shall be ye. Ride us down. Put your horses to their speed. Be assured we will not flinch!”
Time and again the Sheriff tried, now threatening and now cajoling; but equally to no purpose.
At last he grew tired.
“This is a thankless job,” he said, turning him about; “let them send their soldiers. I am not obliged to fight for it.”
And so with a “right about” and a wave of the hand he took his valiant horsemen off by the way they came.
And as they went they say that many a youth turned him on his saddle to cast a longing look upon Alexander-Jonita, who stood there tall and straight in the place where she had so boldly confronted the Sheriff.
Then the women sang a psalm, while Alexander-Jonita, leaping on a horse, rode a musket-shot behind the retiring force, till she had seen them safely across the river at the fords of Glenlochar, and so finally out of the parish bounds.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE ELDERS OF THE HILL FOLK.
(The Narrative taken up again by Quintin MacClellan.)
It was long before I could see clearly the way I should go, after that dismal day and night of which I have told the tale.
It seemed as if there was no goodness on the earth, no use in my work, no right or excellency in the battle I had fought and the sacrifice I had made. Ought I not even now to give way? Surely God had not meant a man so poor in spirit, so easily cast down to hold aloft the standard of his ancient kirk.
But nevertheless, here before me and around me, a present duty, were my parish and my poor folk, so brave and loyal and steadfast. Could I forsake them? Daily I heard tidings of their struggling with the arm of flesh, though I now judge that Hob, in some fear of my disapproval, would not venture to tell me all.
Yet I misdoubted that I had brought my folk into a trouble which might in the event prove a grievous enough one for them.
But a kind Providence watched over them and me. For even when it came to the stormiest, the wind ceased and there was a blissful breathing time of quietness and peace.
Also there was that happened about this time which brought us at least for a time assurance and security within our borders.
It was, as I remember it, a gurly night in late September, the wind coming in gusts and swirling flaws from every quarter, very evidently blowing up for a storm.
Hob had come in silently and set him down by the fire. He was peeling a willow wand for his basket-weaving and looking into the embers. I could hear Martha Little, our sharp-tongued servant lass, clattering among her pots and pans in the kitchen. As for me I was among my books, deep in Greek, which to my shame I had been somewhat neglecting of late.
Suddenly there came a loud knocking at the outer door.
I looked at my plaid hung up to dry, and bethought me who might be ill and in want of my ministrations upon such a threatening night.
I could hear Martha go to the door, and the low murmur of voices without.
Then the door of the chamber opened and I saw the faces and forms of half-a-dozen men in the passage.
“It has come at last,” thought I, for I expected that it might be the Sheriff and his men come to expel me from the kindly shelter of the manse. And though I should have submitted, I knew well that there would be bloodshed on the morrow among my poor folk.
But it turned out far otherwise.
The first who entered into the house-place was a tall, thin, darkish man, with a white pallor of face and rigid fallen-in temples. His eyes were fiery as burning coals, deep set under his bushy eyebrows. Following him came Sir Alexander Gordon of Earlstoun and in the lee of his mighty form three or four others—douce, grave, hodden-grey men every one of them, earnest of eye and quiet of carriage.
Hob went out, unobserved as was his modest wont, and I motioned them with courtesy and observance to such seats as my little study afforded.
As usual there were stools everywhere, with books upon them, and I observed with what careful scrupulosity the men laid these upon the table before sitting down. A Hebrew Bible lay open on the desk, and one after another stooped over it with an eager look of reverence.
I waited for them to speak.
It was the tall dark man who first broke silence.
“Reverend sir,” he said, “what my name is, it skills me not to tell. Enough that I am a man that has suffered much from the strivings of fleshly thorns, from the persecutions of ungodly man. But now I am charged with a mission and a message.
“You have been cast out of the Kirk for adherence to the ancient way. Yet you have upheld in weakness and the frailty of mortal man the banner of the older Covenant. You are not ignorant that there are still societies and general meetings of the Suffering Remnant of men who have never declined, as you yourself have done, from the plain way of conscience and righteousness.
“Yet the man doth not live who doeth good and sinneth not. So because we desire a minister, we would offer you the strong sustaining hand. Though you be not able at once to unite with us, nor for the present to take upon you our strait and heavy testimony, yet because you have been faithful to your lights we will stand by you and see that no man hinder or molest you.”
And the others, beginning with Sir Alexander Gordon, said likewise, “We will support you!”
Then I knew that these men were the leaders and elders among the Hill Folk, and the ancient reverence to which I was born took hold on me. For I had been brought up among them as a lad, and my mother had spoken to me constantly of their great piety and abounding steadfastness in the day of trouble. These were they who had never tangled themselves with any entrapping engagements. They alone were no seceders, for they had never entered any State Church.
With a great price had I obtained this freedom, but these men were free-born.
“I thank you, sirs,” I answered, bowing my head. “I have indeed sought to keep the Way, but I have erred so greatly in the past that I cannot hope to guide my path aright for the future. But one thing I shall at least seek after, and that is the glory of the great King, and the honour and independence of the Kirk of God in Scotland, Covenanted and Suffering!”
The dark stern-faced man spoke again.
“You are not yet one of us. You have yet a far road to travel. But I, that am old, see a vision. And one day you, Quintin MacClellan, shall serve tables among us of the Covenant. I shall not see it with the eyes of flesh. For even now my days are numbered, and the tale of them is brief. Farewell! Be not afraid. The Seven Thousand will stand behind you. No evil shall befall you here or otherwhere. The Seven Thousand have sworn it—they have sworn it on the Holy Book, in the place of Martyrs and in the House of Tears!”
And with that the six men went out through the door and were lost in the darkness of the night. And the wind from the waste swept in and the lowe of the candle flickered eerily as if they had been visitants from another world.
CHAPTER XXX.
SILENCE IS GOLDEN.
It was not long after this that I found myself, almost against my will, skirting the side of the long Loch of Ken, on the road to the Great House of Earlstoun.
The lady of the Castle met me by the outer gate. When I came near her she lifted up her hands like a prophetess.
“Three times have ye been warned! The Lord will not deal always gently with you. It is ill to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds!”
“Mistress Gordon,” said I, “wherein have I now offended?” For indeed there was no saying what cantrip she had taken into her head.
“How was it then,” she said, “that the talk went through the countryside that ye were married to that lassie Jean Gemmell on her dying bed?”
“It is true,” said I, “but wherein was the sin?”
“Oh,” said she, “the sin was not in the marrying (though that was doubtless a silly caper and the lass so near Dead’s door), but in being married by a minister of the Kirk Established and uncovenanted.”
“But what else could I have done?” I hasted to make answer; “there are none other in all Scotland. For the Hill Folk have never had an ordained minister, since they took down James Renwick’s body from the gallows tree, and wrapped him gently in swaddling clothes for his burial.”
“It is even true,” she said, “but I would have gone unmarried till my dying day before I would have let an Erastian servant of Belial couple me. But I forgat—’tis not long since you yourself escaped from that fold!”
So there she stood so long on the step of the door and argued concerning the points of faith and doctrine without ever asking me in, that at last I grew weary, and begged that she would permit me to sit and refresh me on the step of the well-house, which was close at hand, even under the arch of the gateway.
“Aye, surely, ye may that!” she made me answer, and again took up her parable without further offer of hospitality.
And even thus they found us, when Mary Gordon and her father returned from the hill, walking hand in hand as was their wont.
“Wi’ Janet, woman!” cried hearty Alexander, “what ails you at the minister that ye have set him down there by the waters o’ Babylon like a pelican in the wilderness? Could ye no hae asked the laddie ben and gied him bite and sup? Come, lad,” cried he, reaching me a hand, “step up wi’ me—there’s brandy in the cupboard as auld as yoursel’!”
But as for me I had thought of nothing but the look in Mary Gordon’s eyes.
“Brandy!” cried Jean Hamilton. “Alexander, think shame—you that are an elder and have likewise been privileged to be a sufferer for the cause of truth, to be speaking about French brandy at this hour o’ the day. Do ye not see that I have been refreshing the soul of this poor, weak, downcast brother with appropriate meditations from my own spiritual diary and covenantings?”
She took again a little closely-written book from her swinging side-pocket.
“Let me see, we were, I think, at the third section, and the——”
“Lord help us—I’m awa!” cried Sandy Gordon suddenly, and vanished up the turnpike stair. Mary Gordon held out her hand to me in silence, permitted her eyes to rest a moment on mine in calm and friendly fashion, all without anger or embarrassment, and then softly withdrawing her hand she followed her father up the stairs.
I was again left alone with the Lady of Earlstoun.
“‘Tis a terrible cross that I must bear,” said that lugubrious professor, shaking her head, “in that my man hath not the inborn grace of my brother—ah—that proven testifier, that most savoury professor, Sir Robert Hamilton. For our Sandy is a man that cannot stand prosperity and the quiet of the bieldy bush. In time of peace he becomes like a rusty horologe. He needs affliction and the evil day, that his wheels may be taken to pieces, oiled with the oil of mourning, washed with tears of bitterness, and then set up anew. Then for a while he goes on not that ill.”
“Your husband has come through great trials!” I said. For indeed I scarce knew what to say to such a woman.
“Sandy—O aye!” cried his wife. “But what are his trials to the ills which I have endured with none to pity? Have not I suffered his carnal doings well-nigh thirty years and held my peace? Have I not wandered by the burn-side and mourned for his sin? And now, worse than all, my children seek after their father’s ways.”
“Janet Hamilton,” cried a great voice from a window of the tower, “is there no dinner to be gotten this day in the house of Earlstoun?”
The lady lifted up her hands in holy horror.
“Dinner, dinner—is this a time to be thinking aboot eating and drinking, when the land is full of ravening and wickedness, and when iniquity sits unashamed in high places?”
“Never ye heed fash your thumb about the high places, Janet my woman,” cried her husband from the window, out of which his burly, jovial head protruded. “E’en come your ways in, my denty, and turn the weelgaun mill-happer o’ your tongue on yon lazy, guid-for-nae-thing besoms in the kitchen. Then the high places will never steer ye, and ye will hae a stronger stomach to wrestle wi’ the rest o’ the sins o’ the times!”
“Sandy, Sandy, ye were ever by nature a mocker! I fear ye have been looking upon the strong drink!”
“Faith, lass,” replied her husband, with the utmost good humour, “I was e’en looking for it—but the plague o’ muckle o’t there is to be seen.”
The Lady of Earlstoun arose forthwith and went into the tall tower, from the lower stories of which her voice, raised in flyting and contumelious discourse, could be distinctly heard.
“Ungrateful madams,” so she addressed her subordinates, “get about your business! Hear ye not that the Laird is quarrelling for his dinner, which ought to have been served half-an-hour ago by the clock!
“Nay, tell me not that I keeped you so long at the taking of the Book that there was no time left for the kirning of the butter. Never ought is lost by the service of the Lord.”
Thus I sat on the well kerb, listening to the poor wenches getting, as the saw hath it, their kail through the reek. But at that moment I observed Sandy Gordon’s head look through the open window. He beckoned me to him with his finger in a cunning manner. I went up the stairs with intent to find the room where he was, but by a curious mischance I alighted instead on the long oaken chamber where I had been entertained of yore by Mistress Mary.
I found her there again, busy with the ordering of the table, setting out platters and silver of price, the like of which I had never seen, save as it might be in the house of the Laird of Girthon.
“Come your ways in, sir,” she said, briskly, “and help me with my work.”
This I had been very glad to do, but that I knew her father was waiting for me above.
“Right willingly,” said I, “but Earlstoun himself desires my presence aloft in his chamber.”
She gave her shoulders a dainty little shrug in the foreign manner she had learned from her cousin Kate of Lochinvar.
“I think,” she said, “that the job at which ye would find my father can be managed without your assistance.”
So in the great chamber I abode very gratefully. And with the best will in the world I set myself to the fetching and carrying of dishes, the spreading of table-cloths fine as the driven snow. And all the time my heart beat fast within me. For I had never before been so near this maid of the great folk, nor so much as touched the robe that rustled about her, sweet and dainty.
And I do not deny (surely I may write it here) that the doing of these things afforded me many thrills of heart, the like of which I have not experienced ofttimes even on other and higher occasions.
And as I helped the Lady Mary, or pretended to help her rather, she continued to converse sweetly and comfortably to me. But all as it had been my sister Anna speaking—a thousand miles from any thought of love. Her eyes beneath the long dark lashes remained cool and quiet.
“I am glad,” she said, “that ye have played the man, and withstood your enemies even to the last extremity.”
“I could do no other,” I made answer.
“There are very many who could very well have ‘done other’ without stressing themselves,” she said.
And I well knew that she meant Mr. Boyd, who was the neighbouring minister and a recreant from the Societies.
Then she looked very carefully to the ordering of certain wild flowers, which like a bairn she had been out gathering, and had now set forth in sundry flat dishes in the table-midst, in a fashion I had never seen before. More than once she spilled a little of the water upon the cloth, and cried out upon herself for her stupidity in the doing of it, discovering ever fresh delights in the delicate grace of her movements, the swinging of her dress, and in especial a pretty quick way she had of jerking back her head to see if she had gotten the colour and ordering of the flowers to her mind.
This I minded for long after, and even now it comes so fresh before me that I can see her at it now.
“I heard of the young lass of Drumglass and her love for you,” she said presently, very softly, and without looking at me, fingering at the flowers in the shallow basins and pulling them this way and that.
I did not answer, but stood looking at her with my head hanging down, and a mighty weight about my heart.
“You must have loved her greatly?” she said, still more softly.
“I married her,” said I, curtly. But in a moment was ashamed of the answer. Yet what more could I say with truth? But I had the grace to add, “Almost I was heartbroken for her death.”
“She was happy when she died, they said,” she went on, tentatively.
“She died with her hand in mine,” I answered, steadily, “and when she could not speak any longer she still pressed it.”
“Ah! that is the true love which can make even death sweet,” she said. “I should like to plant Lads’ Love and None-so-pretty upon her grave.”