Mrs. Oliphant

“ The ruddy sunbeams just touched her pale head with a shadowy glory; her fingers were busily employed, her mind no less active. Not as Helen Buchanan would have done in the vivid dreams which took possession of her less serene spirit, but in the flush of a tranquil, gentle hope, weaving the mystic thread of her imagined destiny over the unknown future which lay before her.
“Lilias,” said her guardian, when they had been for some time engaged in conversation less personal, “I am the last of my race, but I have a fancy that I should like ill to be the last of my name. ”

“ Manlike and masterful as our fathers were, when the old steel breast-plates at Murrayshaugh and Mossgray covered brave hearts beating high to the natural warfare which they carried over the Border. They too must have had foes, less tangible than the rough barons and yeomen of Cumberland, those fighting men of other generations; and I begin to think, Adam, that the natural element of us all is war—active contention, strife of one kind or another—and that we depart from our most healthful state when we lay down our weapons, and endeavour to halt in the inevitable contest. ”

“ Living or dead, in earth or in heaven, Hew Murray, no man has ever filled your place in your old companion’s heart; and though I have had darkness enough in my own life to make me think an early deliverance from these earthly cares a blessing, yet would I give almost all that remains to me to know that you yet lived and breathed upon this lower world—to hope that I might look upon your face and hear the voice of your brotherhood again! ”

“ Lightly up the stair came the elastic footstep, and Mossgray opened the door gently, and stood before them in the grace of his old age, the moonbeams mingling with his white hair.
“Where are you?” said the old man, looking into the dark shadows of the room. “Helen, is she strong? can she bear joy?”
“Mossgray!”
“My good child, there are others in the world to guard your strength for. He is not strong himself, poor fellow! He has had wounds and sickness; but he lives to thank God, Lilias, as we do.” ”

“ Mrs Buchanan shook her head.
“I hope so, my dear—I hope we shall, Helen; but how we are to do at Martinmas I cannot tell.”
“The fear of ill exceeds the ill we fear,” said Helen, with a bright face. “We will do all we can, mother, and we will manage someway—do not let us think of it to-night.”
Mrs Buchanan’s heart did not rise as her daughter’s did; but the good mother was ready to brighten too, lest those occasional gleams of sunshine, the sole solace of Helen’s toiling life, should be overcast.
“When is Hope to come?” she asked, “and what made Lilias think of asking Hope, Helen?” ”

“ It is not well to leave the unconscious happiness of girlhood too soon, even to enter upon the enchanted ground of youth. Toil, poverty, and William Oswald; the three together were well nigh too many for the youthful champion who had to struggle, single-handed, against them all.
In the twilight of that April evening she sat in their little parlour alone. The faint firelight gave a wavering flush to the shadowy air of the holy time; and Helen sat in the recess of the window, wandering through the mazes of such a reverie, as belongs especially to her peculiar temperament and mind. ”

“ Will you not see with your own eyes whether it is so?”
“You are a Quixote, Lilias,” said Mossgray, “you have the epidemic generosity of youth upon you just now. When you are old, you will be wiser, perhaps—who can tell?—than to throw away your own prospects for the sake of a stranger whom you never saw.”
“I do not know that it is well to be so wise,” said Lilias; “and I shall not learn from you, Mossgray.”
“In this point I cannot answer for myself,” said the old man. “I have had an experience bitterer than usual; but let us not speak of that: we have had enough of Halbert Graeme. ”

“ Mossgray placed himself in front of the cheerful, glowing fire; on the other side stood the low carved chair, turned mournfully aside as if some one had risen from it newly. Its position had never been changed; it still stood where the pale sunbeams could touch it, but it was turned away from the living fireside circle; for the old occupant could never return to Charlie’s chair. Strangely pathetic sometimes are these dumb things about us—mournfully estranged and standing apart it touched the gentle heart of Adam Graeme.
Hew paused to spread his hands over the fire. ”

“ Mossgray paused. Thirty years had elapsed since colder men decided Hew Murray’s fate, thirty years without a sign or token, the faintest that hope could build on; and yet the old man hesitated to say he died.
“Lilias, I cannot tell. He was my dear friend; we were close brethren in our youth; do you think he can have lived these thirty years, and given no sign?”
“No, Mossgray,” said Lilias, “oh, no, no! I do not think it can be hard to die; but to live while your dearest friends think you are dead—no, no—it could not be!” ”

“ Hope’s bright face became suddenly blank.
“Mother, there is nobody like Helen Buchanan in all Fendie! why will my father not let them be married?”
“Because her father did him wrong, Hope; and because she is poor.”
“Because she is poor!—Helen is a gentlewoman, mother!—and because her father did wrong! But that is not Helen’s fault. If my father did wrong, no one would blame William or me.”
“Take care, Hope; you are treading on dangerous ground,” said Mrs Oswald; “and though it is not Helen’s fault, your father has made up his mind, and William must submit.” ”

“ A large garden descended from the most modern front of the house to the water, where it was deeply fringed with willows. The clipt, fantastic trees of a generation which admired such clumsy gambols of art were scattered through it, and there was a sun-dial, and many prim flower-beds; but the cherished lilies of Mossgray were not in these stiffly-angled enclosures; their fresh green leaves were beginning to shoot up in the freer borders—those borders on which they gleamed in the dim summer evenings, like errant rays of the moon. ”

“ Greenshaw is let to strangers—I hear it is greatly altered; but I avoid it in my limited walks, the last association of deadly pain it has having obliterated in my mind all the former ones of youthful joy and sunshine. It is not in my way indeed, for the water and I travel together—I seldom leave the green line of its banks; I pursue its windings up and down with constant interest and pleasure. We never weary of each other; those ripples which I have heard all my life have an articulate tongue to me—they are connected with all the gladness I have dreamt, with all the grief I have undergone ”

“ When he dreams, it is of the world without—the stirring, fighting, opposing world, which is to be quelled, and put down, and tamed into obedience to the young conqueror’s will. The sun sheds grateful light upon him, and the moon looks down from her broad skies in vain. If he could fight for her, she might enlist his youthful chivalry, as the Queen of old times, the hapless Mary, like her in lofty beauty, as in disastrous wading through stormy clouds, might have done: but to dream of her—to think of her serene pale smile—alas, no! ”

“ Lucy Murray and Adam Graeme had borne the first epidemic grief of youth on that Waterside before him. This last example perfected the story of the others. The woman’s sad endurance—the man’s passionate pain—these were not types broad enough for universal humanity. Only a few here and there can feel as they did, but Halbert’s lighter emotions were of the common stock; the momentary melancholy—the sting of mortification—the buoyance of new life and freedom. Lightly the cloud passed over the head of Halbert, a thing to be laughed at by and by; for he had no ideal to be sacrificed. ”

“ The wonderful sky in the west, the broad bed of the Firth, the sunset and its noble scene—there was an enjoyment in these to the delicate soul of Helen, which duller natures have not in the greatest personal blessings of the world.
And now, with her pale cheek resting on her hand, and leaning forward on the window-sill, Helen was lost in a reverie. What was it? only a mist of fair thoughts indefinitely woven together; scenes starting up here and there of the future and of the past, with fairy links of association drawing their strangely-varied band together ”

“ The clouds were hovering over the blank hill far away in golden masses, rounded with the soft advancing gloom of night, and overhead was the peaceful sky, pure and pale in the stillness of its rest.
“Sometimes we have storms, Hope,” said the repentant Helen, “and sometimes it is dark—dark—you do not know how dark it grows sometimes; but the sun rises every morning, and every night—look up yonder, how quiet the sky is—do you think the world could be miserable, Hope, so long as there is the sky and the sun?” ”

“ She still felt this as something strangely gladdening; to dwell in one place a lifetime; to appropriate it all; to have friendships with its hills and its rivers; to feel that it was home.
“Yes,” said Mossgray, looking back at his old house as it lay in the shade, from which the slanting light of the western sun had nearly passed away, “yes, it is a happiness—it is a pleasant thread, this river, on which to hang the memories of one’s life; there was no water, Lilias, in your Cumberland glen?” ”

“ Mrs Oswald sighed.
“You must not speak so of your father, Hope, he knows what is right better than you do.”
Hope looked sceptical; those frank instinctive impulses of the young heart, which had no complicated mesh of secret motives to hinder its prompt out-going, were perhaps better guides after all than the groping, worldly wisdom of elder minds; wisdom whose wary steps are supposed to be guided by the caution of clear-sightedness, when it is only the timid caution of the blind.
“But I may go to see Helen Buchanan, may I not, mother?” asked Hope, after a pause. ”

“ Adam, we have had much and intimate intercourse, but scarcely ever have we spoken together of Him who is the centre of this world’s history, the wonderful Presence that pervades all the changes of its many ages past and to come. But, Adam, because He bids, because He leads, because He himself for the strife and for the victory’s sake was clothed as one of us. It is a wonderful history, that, of this long struggle ascending up to the very source of time, of the good and the evil, the righteousness of heaven, and the sin of earth ”

“ Helen started.
“I have all the world—not this little humble house—not that school-room only; but the earth, and the sky, and the sea! Look at them—look at what God gives us—the sunshine and the clouds—the hills and the rivers—and you ask me what I have to enjoy? I have all the world! the weariness and the rest, the labour and the sleep, the night and the day, they are all given us, waiting our pleasures like the spirits of the old dreams. ”

“ I beg you will not misunderstand me, Mrs Oswald; I vow to you that this girl shall never cross my threshold, and if William persists in his folly he must choose between her and me; for assuredly he shall not keep his place with both. I tell you her father was a fool and a weakling, and you know the injury he did me. My mind is made up; before I receive this girl (I care nothing for her own good qualities—they do not concern me in the slightest) as my daughter, I will disown my son. If he wants to prolong her poverty, and to make himself a servant all his life, let him persist in his madness ”

“ Rather thank God that bravely in honour and faith, he has been taken home; in the odour and grace of youth, before evil days or stains came upon him. Lilias, there are sorrows harder than yours—you shall find again him whom you have lost. There are those who have lost, and shall find never more, because they are parted not by this faithful and pure death, but by the dark barriers of sin and change. Lilias, my good child! ”