Margaret M. Robertson

“ Marion said nothing, but turned her eyes seaward with a grave face. Jean went on.
“Yes, many things will happen, but it will be just the same thing over again. The ships will sail away, and there will be long waiting, and some of them will come home, and some will never come, and the pain will be as hard to bear as if it had never come to many a sore heart before. And some folk will be glad, and some will be at least content, and some will make mistakes and spoil their lives and then just wait on to the end. Marion, what are you thinking about?” ”

“ Through the quiet of the soft sunny days, and the glory of nights made beautiful by the light of unfamiliar stars, these two young people, who had been for the last five years almost as strangers to each other, renewed their acquaintance, and indeed grew into a truer and deeper knowledge of each other than years of common life might have brought them, and before the happy outward voyage was over, there mingled with Jean’s love for her husband the reverence which no true heart can withhold from the man “who is good before God.” ”

“ Some who had known Miss Jean all her life declared that she was far more beautiful at sixty than she had ever been in her youth. And naturally enough. For a life of glad service to a loving Master, a helpful, hopeful, self-forgetful doing of good as opportunity is given, for His sake, tell on the countenance as on the character; and the grave cheerfulness, the trustful peace that rested on the old woman’s face were beautiful to those who had eyes to see.
It was not May, but Miss Dawson, who came with the visitor that morning. ”

“ He had noticed her, and had liked her frank, fearless ways before she left Portie, and the sight-seeing together in London, and more still, the few quiet days which she had spent with Miss Jean at Saughleas, won him quite. It was going beyond the truth, as Mrs Saugster had said, to declare that the old man had made the marriage, though it is doubtful whether it would have come about so soon, or whether it would have come about at all, if it had not been for a question or two that he had put to his sister as he sat once in the gloaming in her house. ”

“ For Miss Jean troubled her with few words; but sat silent, seeing without seeming to see, that all was not well with her niece.
It was a rest for Jean to sit there in the quiet room, and it is not to be wondered at that there were times when she forgot to keep guard over her face, as even before her aunt she had done of late. At such times her aunt regarded her anxiously. She had become thin and white, and her eyes had grown large and wistful; as her mother’s eyes had been, before she had resigned herself to the knowledge that she must leave them all. ”

“ How many fathers had wandered up and down Portie sands, waiting for sons who had never returned! Who was he that he should escape what so many a better man had endured?
But it had not come to that with him yet. Surely God would be merciful to him, and spare so good a man as George to do His own work in the world. He was afraid to be angry, afraid to utter the rebellious words that rose to his lips, lest God should judge him for them.
“I am losing myself, I think,” said he, making a strong effort to restrain his thoughts. “I may as well go back to Jean, or to the pier head.” ”

“ For they knew that each passing day without tidings mocked the hope they had so long cherished.
Through all the mother waited quietly. Never quite without hope that she would see her son again, but after a while the poor pretence of cheerfulness for which she had striven, because of Marion, failed beyond her power to help it. The silent patience which had been the habit of her life under other troubles, stood her in good stead now. And when this failed her, and the restlessness, of a slowly dying hope came upon her, she would go away by herself till she could hide all tokens of her pain again. ”

“ It was George’s face. That was enough.
“It is a man’s face. And he’ll show himself a man yet, and do a man’s share in the work of the world,” said the proud and happy father. And in his heart he acknowledged his son’s right to take his own way and live his own life, even though the way might lie apart from his, and though the life he chose might not be just the life that his father would have chosen for him.
“Your aunt should have been here, Jean. You should have sent for her,” said Mr Dawson in a little.
“I will go and see her,” said George. “I will walk in with you to the town, by and by.” ”

“ In Miss Jean’s eyes, he was as little like the wilful lad who had given cause for many anxious thoughts in the old days, as could well be, except that he had the same sunny temper and the same winning ways, and was well-beloved as he had been in his most foolish days. Now he was a man to be trusted as well as loved. He was a graver man than he might ever have become without the discipline of sorrow through which he had passed, and the remorseful memory of the worse than wasted years that followed ”

“ And there she stood while the ship went slowly on its northern way, “carrying her life with it,” she said to herself, in vague wonder at the utter faintness of heart, and weariness of body which had fallen upon her.
“What has come to me?” she muttered. “What is Willie Calderwood to me, but a friend? He has ay been that, and ay will be, and if he is more to my bonny May—why that makes him more to me—and not less, surely. And friends must part. There is many a sair heart in Portie the night—and folk man just thole whatever is sent, and say nothing. And oh! if Geordie would but come home?” ”

“ A long, patient, laborious, self-forgetting life hers has been—has it not? She is strong and she has been successful; yet she is not hard. She is good, but she is not down on wrong-doers in the way that some good folk are. If I had my choice, I think I would choose to have just such a life as she has had—if it would make me like her.”
Mr Dawson looked at his daughter in some surprise. Jean was not looking at him, but over his head far away to the sea, bright for the moment, under a gleam of sunshine. ”

“ It was to Miss Jean she had intended to say it, and Miss Jean was sitting under the beeches with folded hands, ready to listen. And yet, looking into the grave, serene face of Miss Jean, she did hesitate. She could not tell why; for Miss Jean was only a person who had kept a shop, and counted and hoarded the pence, and who knew their value. A commonplace, good-natured woman, not easily offended, why should she not say to her all that she had to say—and say it plainly too? ”

“ Her face was bright and her air cheerful enough at the moment, but for all that there was a look of thoughtfulness and gravity upon it—a silent look—which reminded her father of his sister’s look at her age. Only she was more beautiful. She was like a young princess, he thought, in his pride in her.
“Is it her gown?” asked he; “or is it the way that Jean puts her hair? What has ’come o’ a’ her curls this while back?”
The question was not to be answered. The opening of a little gate at the side of the lawn made them turn, and then Mr Dawson rose to greet a stranger who was coming up the walk. ”

“ There is your Englishman, Marion,” said Hugh Corbett. “I wonder he didn’t come in. He’ll be back again to go with us, unless we make haste to get away.”
“Well, and why should not he come with us? The more the merrier,” said his sister.
“And he’s no’ my Englishman,” said Marion with dignity; “and for that matter ye are only an Englishman yoursel’.”
“Only an Englishman! Just hear her!” said Hugh.
“And ye’re not even an Englishman. You are neither one thing nor the other,” said Grace Petrie laughing. “If ye were to bide a while in Portie, ye might maybe pass for a Scotchman, however.” ”

“ But it was not so good for Jean. For their talk with the old sailors, and the fishwives, and indeed their talk together, was mostly of the sea and its dangers, the treasures which it hid, and the far lands that lay beyond it. She told him tales of the sea, and repeated songs and ballads made about sea kings and naval heroes of all times, and sang them in the gloaming, with their wild refrains, which look like nonsense written down, but which sung, as Jean could sing them, deepened the pathos of the sad and sometimes terrible tales which were told; and the lad was never weary of listening. ”

“ Is it Willie you are speaking about? He would never do it. May, you must not ask it of him. It would be putting him in a false position altogether. He is a true sailor.”
“Oh! I shall not ask him. It would do little good. But I wonder at you all the same. You have no ambition. He can never be more than just a sea captain—and always away.”
“A sea captain!” repeated Jean. “A sailor!—And what would you have? Would you put him behind the counter in a shop? or set him to casting up figures or counting money in a bank? Would you even old Mr Petrie or James or any of them with the like of him?” ”

“ Many things had wrought toward the change which Mrs Cairnie and other folk as well saw in Mr Dawson about this time. The new life which George was making honourable among his fellow townsmen, the firm stand he took on the side of right in all matters where his influence could be brought to bear, the light hold that wealth, or the winning of it for its own sake, had ever had upon him, had all by slow degrees told on the old man’s opinions and feelings. But as to his wish for his son’s marriage with Marion Calderwood, it was Marion herself who had brought that about. ”

“ It was Mr Dawson himself he had come to see; and when they all came back, and the young folk had had their tea and were gone home together in the moonlight, her father had something to say to Jean.
“It’s a comfort that you can just leave it to Jean herself,” said his sister, when he told his news to her. Of what her own opinion might be she said nothing, nor was she curious to hear what Mr Dawson might think now about the chance that his daughter had of becoming the wife of Captain Harefield. “It is a thing that she must decide for herself; and indeed she will let no one else decide it.” ”

“ Surely a love that has lasted all his life must be a good thing for any woman to have.”
But all the same he wished with all his heart that he could refuse to let him speak. Not that he had any special fear of Jean. She would surely have given some token during all these years, if her fancy had turned to Willie Calderwood. But he had returned a hero—“in a small way,” as Mr Dawson put it, and young lassies are so open to impressions of that kind. And the lad was every inch a man, that could not be denied.
“I ken well she might look higher. Who is worthy of her?” said Willie humbly. ”

“ She was a wonder to him at such times, but in the morning she was just as usual, “bonny and blithe” and easily pleased.
“Ye mind me whiles of our Jean,” said he to her one day, and he could not but wonder at the sudden brightness that flashed over her face at the words. Mrs Manners laughed.
“That is the very utmost that can be said, papa. You cannot go beyond that. There is no one like. Jean in. Marion’s eyes.”
“Am I like her? Maybe I may grow like her, sometime,” said the girl softly. ”

“ That night Mr Dawson and Miss Jean sat long together, when the others had gone away, and for the most part they sat in silence. Mr Dawson had some thoughts which he would not have liked to tell his sister,—thoughts which he knew she would call wrong and thankless—which he would gladly have put away.
The good things of this life, the glad surprises, the unhoped for reprieves from sorrow, rarely come without some drawback of regret or pain. That he should have got tidings of his son; that he should be coming home, and glad to come ”

“ Marion was pleased when he came, and liked him as she liked all the rest of the folk of Portie, who had been kind to her all her life, liking them all the more that she had left them, and saw little of them. Her mother feared that, flattered by his admiration, she might fancy it was more than liking that she felt for him, and that should he ask her to become his wife, she might accept him, and repent it all her life as many another woman has done. ”

“ Miss Jean found her soft flowing talk pleasant to listen to, and all the more that she did not need very often to reply. Mr Dawson was charmed with her, and it was not, as a general thing, his way to be charmed with strangers. But she was not altogether a stranger. Her husband’s name—Eastwood, the London banker—had long been familiar to Mr Dawson. He knew him to be a “responsible” man, and that was more than could be said of all the fine English folk, who found it convenient to pass a part of the summer or autumn at Blackford House. ”