Harriet Martineau

“ There is no kindness in holding out new hopes to me. My enemies will not let me stay here now my friends know where to find me. I shall be carried to Saint Kilda, or some other horrible place; or, if they have not time to take care of me while they are setting up their new king, they will murder me. Oh, I shall never live to see Edinburgh again: and my husband and Lovat will be lording it there, and laughing at me and my vain struggles during all these years, while I lie helpless in my grave, or tossing like a weed in these cruel seas. ”

“ Lady Carse groaned.
“That is only for a while, however,” said Annie, tenderly. “When there is peace of mind, there is no one to hunt us—no one to hurt us. We abide here or anywhere; for the shadow of the Almighty is everywhere. No one can hunt us from it, nor hurt us within it. And I assure you, my lady, this is the place of all places for peace of mind.” ”

“ It never left this room before but by my order, and it never must again.”
“It shall never leave the place where it now is,” declared Lady Carse, reddening. “I threw myself on your hospitality, and you grudge me light in the night. You, who are housed in a cottage of your own, with a fire, and everything comfortable about you—that is, every comfort that a poor woman like you knows how to value. You think yourself very religious, I am aware, and I rather believe you think yourself charitable, too; and you grudge me your oil can, when there is no one thing on earth you can do for me but lend it.” ”

“ His start at the voice, his bewildered look down the face of the rock, and the scared expression of his countenance when he discovered the face that peeped out at the bottom, amused Lady Carse extremely. She did not remember how unlike her fair complexion and her hair were to those of the women of these islands, nor that a stranger was in this place more rare than a ghost. And as for the man—what could he suppose but that the handsome face that he saw peeping out, laughing, from the base of the precipice, was that of some rock spirit, sent perhaps for mischief? ”

“ But you are a woman of sense.”
“I am not afraid of you, and never was,” said Annie looking calmly in her face; “but I can understand how some people might be.”
“Not people of sense,” exclaimed Lady Carse quickly.
“Perhaps not; but we do not expect all that we have dealings with to be people of sense.”
“No, indeed! Nobody need ever look for sense in Lord Carse, for one. Well! I am so glad you never were afraid of me; and I am sure, moreover, that you love me: you are so kind to me!”
“I do,” said Annie, smiling in reply to the wistful gaze. ”

“ When, some few years after, the steward approached the island on an autumn night, in honour of Rollo’s invitation to attend the funeral of the Widow Fleming, his eye unconsciously sought the guiding light on the hill-side.
“Ah!” said he, recollecting himself, “it is gone, and we shall see it no more. Rollo will live on the main, and this side of the island will be deserted. Her light gone! We should almost as soon thought of losing a star. And she herself gone! We shall miss her, as if one of our lofty old rocks had crumbled down into the sea. ”

“ How perverse,” he said, looking at the ladies, “how perverse is the human heart. My dear, you can, and you must do what is right. You may love me and your mamma first, and next you must love this lady. Say you will try.”
“I’ll try,” said Kate.
Adam whimpered a little longer; but then he also said, “I’ll try.”
“That is right. That is the least you can say after your extraordinary behaviour. Now you may go with the lady, as she is so kind as to wish it.”
Lady Carse moved off in silence; and the children, tightly grasping each other’s hands, followed as if going to a funeral. ”

“ However this might be, Annie’s tones so animated some hearts and strengthened some voices as that the psalm might be, and was, heard a long way off. It reached an unwilling ear, and drew forward reluctant steps. The links of old association, are, however, the strongest of chains, and no charm is so magical as that of religious emotion. Lady Carse was drawn nearer and nearer, in hope of hearing ano, her psalm, till the solemn tones of prayer reached her, and presently she was crouching under the wall outside, weeping like a sinner who dares not knock at the gate of heaven. ”

“ The arch opened upon a cove, deep and narrow, between projecting rocks. A small raft rose and fell on the surface of the water; and on the raft stood a man, steading himself with his legs wide apart, while he held a rope with both hands, and gazed intently upwards. The raft was in a manner anchored; tied with ropes to masses of rock on each side of the cove; but it still pitched so much that Lady Carse thought the situation of the man very perilous: and she, therefore, made no noise, lest she should startle him. ”

“ He lifted her in himself, and placed Helsa beside her; and then his men dared not show further unwillingness but by silence.
Lady Carse raised herself and beckoned to Annie. Annie leaned over to her, and said, “Dear Lady Carse, you look very pale. It is not too late to say you will come home with me.”
Lady Carse tried to laugh; but it was no laugh, but a convulsion. She struggled to say, “I shall do very well presently, when I feel I am free. It is only the last prison airs that poison me. If we never meet again—”
“We shall not meet in life, Lady Carse. I shall pray for you.” ”

“ Full as his mind was of public and private affairs—charged as he was with the defence of Scotland against the treason of the Pretender and his followers—grieved as he was by the heart-sorrows which attend civil war—and now a fugitive, destitute of means, and in peril of his life—he still had cheerfulness and patience to minister to Lady Carse. From his deliberate and courteous entrance, his air of leisure, his quiet humour in conversation, and his clear remembrance of small incidents relating to the lady’s family and acquaintance, anyone would have supposed that he had not a care in the world. ”

“ Well, I cannot but think how you could keep yourself warm, unless you are a witch as Macdonald says you are.”
“It is the mother’s heart in her, Rollo, that keeps out the cold and the harm,” said Annie. “It may be a wonder to you; for how should you know what it is to have had a hope of seeing one’s children, to have dreamed of nothing else, waking or sleeping, and then to find it nothing but a dream. See her now, Rollo, as the cold comes over her heart. The heart can live warm on its own thoughts, when it is chilling to hear another voice speak of them.”
Lady Carse was now very pale. ”

“ There was no answer, and Annie went on.
“I could believe that there is no love so altogether good—at least for us here. It is as yearning as that of a mother for her child, and as tender as that of lovers; and I should say, more holy than either, for theirs is natural to them in their mortal life, though it may be the purest part of it; the other love is an instinct belonging to the immortal life, a tongue of fire, sent down upon the head of a chosen one here and there, gifting them with the language of angels, to tell us on this side the grave what we shall find beyond. ”

“ There! Adam felt some then.” And well he might. The sea was now wrought into such tumult that its waves rolled in upon the rocks with tremendous force, causing the caverns to resound with the thundering shock, and the very summit of the precipices to vibrate. Every projection sent up columns of spray, the sprinklings of which reached the heights, bedewing the window of the cottage, and sending in the party under the gable.
“There now,” said the widow, when she had fed her fire, and sat down, “we have seen a fine sight to-day; and there will be more to-morrow.” ”

“ The scream of a sea-bird reached her, as the creature was swept by on the blast.
“That is for me,” she said to herself, the blood returning to her stricken heart and pale cheek. “How God sends His creatures to teach us at the moment when we need His voice! I have seen the cormorant sitting in his hole in wintry weather,—sitting there for days together, hungry and cold, trying now and then to get out, and driven back by such a blast as he cannot meet,—by such a blast as this. And then he sits on patiently, and moves no more till the wind lulls and the sky clears. ”

“ I see a lady driven from home, deprived of her children, and tormenting herself with thoughts of revenge because she has no other object. I see a gentleman who has been cruelly put to shame in his own house and in the public street, worn with anxiety about his innocent daughters, and with natural fears—inevitable fears, of the mischief that may be done to his character and fortunes by an ill use of the confidence he once gave to the wife of his bosom. ”

“ This is one chief mode in which the indulgence of any kind of passion is corrupting. It injures the integrity of the faculties and the truthfulness of the mind, inducing its victims to trust to chances instead of likelihood, and to dwell upon extravagances till they become incapable of seeing things as they are.
So Lady Carse now presently forgot that she was alone on a hill in a far island of the Hebrides, with no means of getting away, and no chance of letting any friend know that she was not buried long ago—and her imagination was busy in London. ”

“ The cheerfulness, sweetness and joy of their victims has ever been, and will ever be, a perplexity to oppressors. It was so now to Mr Ruthven, after an act of tyranny perpetrated, as most acts of tyranny are, under a mistaken, an ignorant and arrogant sense of duty. Not only did the widow stand up with others for the closing psalm—her voice was the firmest, sweetest, clearest in the assembly—so sweet and clear that it came back even upon her own ear with a sort of surprise. ”

“ But you will—”
“It is not my children that I most want. You say falsely that they are the last to be given up. There is—”
“Falsely!” cried Rollo, springing to his feet. “My mother speak falsely! If you dare—”
“Gently, my boy,” said Annie. “We have not heard what the lady means.”
“Be quiet, Rollo,” said Lady Carse. “Your mother speaks falsely as regards me; but I do not say that it is not after her own kind that she speaks. If God gives me to see my children, I will thank him devoutly; but there is another thing that I want more—revenge on all my enemies, and on my husband first.” ”

“ If you may enter into a living rest which we may see, that will, under God’s blessing, be better than the blank rest of going away from your enemies, when their old wrongs may be still in your heart, making death a stinging serpent instead of a guiding dove.”
Some sweet old words here occurred to Lady Carse, linked with a sweet old psalm tune—words of longing to have wings like a dove, to flee away and be at rest. She murmured these words; and they brought softening tears.
“You see, madam,” said Annie, “your nest is made for you. You have been permitted to flee away from your enemies! ”

“ Things have never gone well for any length of time here since the chapel fell completely down, and the bleat of the kid came out from where the psalm ought to sound. We must apply ourselves to build up the chapel; and, as there is a minister coming, we may hope to be released from witches and every kind of curse.”
“There will be little room for any kind of curse,” thought Annie, “when the minister has taught us to ‘be kindly affectioned one to another,’ and not to make our little island more stormy with passions than it ever is with tempests of wind and hail.” ”

“ She must speak to Macdonald to procure her some oil. But very strictly must she speak to herself about this new trouble of discontent. Did she not know that He who appointed her dwelling-place on that height, and who marked her for her life’s task by that touch on her heart-strings the night she saw her husband drown, would supply the means? If her light was to be set on the hill for men to see from the tossing billows and be saved, it would be taken care of that, as of old, the widow’s cruise of oil did not fail. ”

“ No one bore it so well as the Widow Fleming. Her only son was in one of the absent companies; she had no other near relation in the world; and she had on her hands a sinking and heart-sick neighbour, whose pains of suspense were added to her own. Yet Annie was the most cheerful person now on the island. When Helsa was fatigued and dispirited by her attendance on Lady Carse, and was sent home for a day’s holiday, she always came back with alacrity, saying that after all, the Macdonalds’ side of the island was the most dismal of the two. ”

“ It is but a stormy place to abide in, to be sure; but if Christ be sought, He is here to command peace, and the winds and the sea obey Him.”
“I cannot stay here,” sobbed Lady Carse. “I cannot give up my hopes and my efforts—the only aim of my life.”
“It is hard,” said the widow, with starting tears. “The last thing that a mother can give up,—the very last thing she can lay freely into God’s hand is her yearning for her children. ”

“ I see that Lady Carse hopes to escape to the main by a smuggling vessel coming to this coast. I can enter into this. I do not wonder at any effort the poor lady makes—”
“You insufferable woman!” cried Lady Carse, starting up from her half-sleep with a glowing face and a clenched hand. “Do you dare to pity me?”
“I do, madam: and I ask of you in return—I implore you to pity me. This is the bitterest day to me since that which made my boy fatherless. I have this day discovered that my fatherless boy has been corrupted by those who—”
“I do not approve of innuendo,” declared Mr Ruthven. ”

“ The tide was going down; and as soon as she reached the sands of a little cove she was pleased to see a good many shell fish. Her first thought was that she would collect some and carry them up for Annie Fleming’s breakfast; but she immediately remembered that this would add to her fatigues, and consume her precious time; and she gave up the thought, and began picking up cockles for herself—large blue cockles, which she thought would afford her an excellent breakfast, if only she could meet with some fresh bread and butter in some nook in the island. ”