Mrs. Oliphant

“ But I tell you, Galbraith, there is no nature in it,’ he said, once more rising in his excitement, ‘to link that creature’s pure soul to a hardened, heathen, self-seeking man of the world. I know the lad; he is near her in age, but in nothing else. She makes a God of him in her imagination; and when her eyes were opened, and she saw the loathly creature by her side, what would become of my Isabel? She would break her heart, and she would die.’
‘Her eyes might never be opened,’ said the Dominie, reflectively. ‘There’s no bounds to a woman’s power of deceiving herself. ”

“ Stapylton, if that’s your way of thinking it’s far best it should all come to an end. I don’t want to be married. I will never leave my sister. If you will have an answer yes or no, there’s your answer. Never, never, if she should live a dozen years!—and God send she may live a dozen years, and a dozen more to that!’ cried Isabel with a sob. ‘My Margaret, that never has a thought but for me! And to bid me run away and shame the house, and break her heart—and to call it love!’ said the girl, with an outburst of tears. ”

“ Margaret will be anxious, but we’ll send her word to-morrow. I know a good woman to take you to. I know a quiet way down, where nobody will see us. Isabel, Isabel! you don’t mean to say you’re angry. You are not afraid of me?’
‘I’m feared for no man,’ cried Isabel, drawing herself away from him, and turning back with startled, gleaming eyes. She made no further answer, but folded her shawl close round her, and turned her back upon her eager, pleading lover. He had to follow her as she made her way with nervous haste back to the highroad which crossed the hill. ”

“ As for Jean, she looked suspiciously at her companion, and continued—
‘There’s mair ways of stealing than one. It might be some lad that would never meddle with siller or gold; but there’s things mair precious than siller or gold—eh, Isabel, my woman!’ cried honest Jean, with a thrill of true feeling in her voice.
‘What are you speaking of?’ said Isabel, coldly. ‘To hear you, folk would think you had some meaning. There’s little to steal at the Glebe, if that’s what you are thinking. Most likely it’s your son Jamie, wasting his time on the moor instead of learning his lessons. ”

“ But the other tearful face, full of emotion, was turned towards him; and Isabel, who had almost hated him for half her life, waved her hand in the compunction of her mind. ‘My Margaret!’ he said, softly to himself; and thus turned and disappeared out of the quiet world in which he was unfit to live.
‘He is gone! Oh, Ailie, he is gone!’ said Isabel, coming back from the window with a sob.
‘Aye, he’s gone!’ said Ailie; ‘and you are more moved than his wife. I know what you would say, Isabel, but it’s useless—useless! What is man to me? ”

“ When Margaret dies—and we all know that calamity cannot be long averted—is it your will, for the sake of your amusement, that a bonnie, tender creature should be left without friend or guide in the world? Yes, I know what you think,’ said Miss Catherine, growing hot; ‘you think she’s so soft and sweet, that you can play as you please. But mind what I say, you may go too far with Isabel; she is young, and younger than she might be, but she is not of a light nature to be guided by you. If you play her false, be it in one way, be it in another, you’ll get your punishment. ”

“ John,’ said Mr. Lothian, with a certain impatience; ‘you know so much better than the rest. Whatever they take into their heads they will believe in: but you, who are a man of the world——’
Mr. John gave a sweep of his hand as if it were to say, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ and passed his questioner. ‘I am the servant of the Lord,’ he said. There was in the man’s look, in his nervous movements, in the extraordinary absorbed expression of his face, such a sense of the reality of his extraordinary purpose that the minister found not another word to say. ”

“ We have plenty now; and by the time she grows up——’
‘Oh, Isabel, ye’re like a bairn with a new doll: let the poor infant take a grip of her life before you think of the time when she’ll be grown up. Ye’ll be for a man to her next.’
‘Oh, no, no man,’ said Isabel, with a little shiver; ‘what should my baby want with a man? She’ll be mine as I am hers—my only one, all I have in the world.’
‘You’re little better than two weans together,’ said Jean, looking pitifully down upon the mother and child and drying her eyes. ”

“ But the night grew darker, and the wind moaned louder, and Isabel started with a thrill of natural terror. She stood on the highest point of the road, feeling that there was still a choice before her, for one wild moment. She might turn, and fly back to the Glebe even now. She might shut fast the doors, and send for her friends, and barricade herself from the approach of the murderer; her husband’s murderer—that was what he was! She stood with her breath coming in sobs against the wind, all alone in Heaven and earth, to make her decision. ”

“ She has me.’
‘And you are but a bairn yourself,’ said the Dominie, with his broken groan.
‘I am her mother,’ said Isabel, ‘who had I but Margaret? and Margaret was only my sister. And I am young and strong. She has me!’
‘My dear,’ said the old minister, who with all his sympathy could not let such a speech pass unrebuked, ‘she has her Father in Heaven. She has the Father of the fatherless. You must not build on your youth and strength. Have we not all seen what awful change and overturn may happen in a single day?’
And then Isabel looked up at him with her tear-dilated, smiling eyes. ”

“ John, loftily, ‘it is the sign of God’s will towards you. If you are to be given to me, your instructions, your directions, must come through my hands. It is to me it is revealed, for I am the head. Listen to the Lord’s voice. Want of faith has laid one head low that should have shone above us all. Will you let it overcome you now that have triumphed in your time? Ailie, beware! The blasphemy that cannot be pardoned, and the sin that may not be forgiven, is the sin against the Holy Ghost.’
‘But I canna see it! I canna see it!’ cried poor Ailie, bursting into tears. ”

“ And Isabel knew she was young, and felt that she had a long existence before her. Was she to do nothing for the comfort of that existence—nothing to win it out of the mists and dreams? She sat down breathless, her heart heaving with the agitation through which she had lately passed, her nature all astir and moved by a hundred questionings. She did not love Mr. Lothian. Love was over for her—gone out of her life like a tale that is told; but life had to continue all the same: and what kind of life? ”

“ There is not much to take up a young man like you here.’
‘There is more here than anywhere else in the world,’ said young Stapylton; ‘I should like to stay all my life—I hate the very thought of going away.’
‘But your friends are all in England,’ said Margaret. ‘and your life—it is not easy for me now to feel what life is. I am like one lying by a riverside, seeing it glide and glide away. I can do little but speak, and that’s poor work. But you that are young and strong are different—you and Isabel. ”

“ Looking up and looking down, the white roads seem to her to extend for miles on every side, without a single passenger upon them. Nobody, then, could criticise or blame her for that sick movement of her heart. Isabel went in softly, feeling her circumstances now too solemn to permit her to run out with a shawl round her as she had once done—and put on her bonnet. And then, with a thrill of excitement, took her way up the hill. Either its steepness or some strange expectation took away her breath. The braes were changed from what they had so lately been. ”

“ John. ‘Nobody is to blame. I came stealing in like a thief in the night: they shut me out from you as if I would harm you—I that am ready to give my life for you. Margaret, arise! I’ve won you out of the hands of Death!{91}’
‘Oh, if you would not waste this madness on me!’ said Margaret. ‘Isabel, let him stay. Death thinks no shame and feels no fear. I’m glad that I can speak to him before I go. John Diarmid, dinna drive me wild. This life is no so grand a gift that I should seek it out of your hands. God’s will is more to me than your will. ”

“ And there was a pause like a lull in a storm.
Then the gust rose again, menacing and sudden. ‘You think I am making a confession,’ he said, ‘but I am doing nothing of the sort. You cannot harm me. I am safe, at least from the wife of my bosom. You can’t bear witness against your husband, though you had ten thousand proofs. Thank the law for that. If all this passion were not a pretence to start with! Was there ever a woman that quarrelled with her lover for anything he could do for her sake?’
‘For my sake!’ said Isabel, with a low cry of horror. ”

“ But as it was the advantage was not all on her sister’s side.
‘We’ve been hearing of Ailie Macfarlane,’ said Isabel, eagerly; ‘I have seen her. If it is faith that has cured Ailie, why should you lie there so weak? Oh, my bonnie Maggie! If it was the like of me it would be different; but why should Ailie be well and strong and you lie there?’
‘I think because it’s God’s will,’ said Margaret: ‘but Miss Catherine has been here, and I have done nothing this hour but talk of myself; it is not the best subject. Mr. Stapylton, I thought you were leaving the Loch? ”

“ Lothian retreated from her look, and turned to the window. In comparison with himself, Miss Catherine was an old woman; but still, when he was brought to task for it, he had nothing to advance in defence of his love.
‘You need not turn away your face,’ she said, with a smile, ‘as if I had not seen it grow red and grow pale many a time at the lassie’s glance. And she’s but a bairn when all is said. It’s a mystery to me. A woman of your age would think as little of a lad of hers, as of an infant. And yet you, an honest man, that might be her father, let such a lassie fill up your very heart. ”

“ Hers was the only heart that beat no faster. She lay and looked at them all as a creature past all the storms of life might be supposed to look at those still tossing on its stormy tide. She was not roused by the appeal made to her faith, nor overwhelmed by the fervour of the prayers, the tears, the exclamations, the bewildered, breathless expectations by which she was surrounded. She put one arm softly round Isabel, who knelt by her side, and with her other hand took hold of Ailie’s, which was stretched up over her in entreaty. ”

“ It is not the time to speak of what one might wish, or what one might dream. But, my dear, I want you not to forget that there is one heart not far off full of love for you. Not a word—not a word. Isabel, I am asking nothing, my dear. I am going away this minute, as soon as I’ve said what I have to say. Kindness you’ll have in plenty—but love is rare. I thought I would just come and tell you of mine.’
‘Oh, Mr. Lothian, I do not deserve it!’ sobbed poor Isabel.
‘And that there is not a trouble you have, nor a tear you shed, but I would fain bear it for you,’ said the minister ”

“ Isabel had grown more and more like her sister without knowing it. And now when her heart was so touched with sorrow, and wonder, and compassion, and all the depths of her nature moving in her eyes, it might have been Margaret herself who stood there, looking with infinite pity, striving vainly to understand the woman who was John Diarmid’s wife.
‘She is changed,’ he said, following with his eyes Isabel’s anxious look—‘sadly changed. It is because she will look at things only in one way. We were mistaken, I think. The world itself is changed, though so few can see it. ”

“ To stand up for Him in a dark world; to go forth like the angels, and make the way clear; to love and to bless, and to give life for death. O Isabel! O young man! I would rather that than Heaven.’
Ailie, with her young face gleaming white in the twilight, her nervous arm raised, her abstracted, humid eyes gazing into the vacant darkness, was a creature whose influence it was hard to be altogether indifferent to. Stapylton, though he was capable of laughter at this exhibition ten minutes after, was, at least, silenced for the moment. ”

“ Margaret said nothing for some minutes; she held the child close with her feeble arm, and calmed and soothed her; and it was only when the sobs were over and the excitement subdued that she spoke.
‘So you think God’s no so kind to me?’ she said softly in the darkness. ‘My little Mary, you are too little to understand. I am not one that craves for gifts; I am content with love. I am best pleased as it is. Ailie and me are two different spirits; not that one is better and the other worse. If we had both been angels, we would still have been different. You are too little to understand. ”

“ Then the excitement died out; and ‘at the doors,’ and on the way to church, and in the smithy, and everywhere else where the parish resorted, all thoughts and criticisms began to centre in the presentee.
But while this gradual softening process acted upon the parish at large, the Manse was left like a desolate island in the midst of all the life and sunshine. All at once, mysteriously, as by a stroke of magic, the light had vanished from it; a sort of dumb horror wrapt the house, abstracting it from the community of which it had been for so long a cheerful centre. ”

“ What is likely is that you have a long life before you; and by and by you’ll marry, as most women do. I don’t say now—you’re thinking of nothing of the kind now; but when due time has past, and you have shown the respect you ought—You may think me heartless to speak so, but I’m not heartless, Isabel.’
‘I cannot understand what you are saying,’ said Isabel. ‘Oh, let me be! I am at home, and among my ain folk. I neither want change nor diversion—nor to be married—nor a new life! If there is one thing I would like, it would be to work late and early and take care of the house. ”

“ How can you name such a thing to me?’
‘Now, Isabel,’ said young Stapylton, ‘this is nonsense, you know. If you break my heart, what good will that do to her? It will not cure her. Besides,’ he added with suppressed scorn, ‘you know yourself—you have told me—that Margaret might be well if she liked. She is very good, isn’t she? better than that girl whom you are all talking of—and she ought to be cured. If she keeps herself ill on purpose, it is cruel and selfish of her. ”

“ Always if it is permitted—I canna tell.’
‘Oh, Margaret! Margaret! I will die too,’ cried Isabel, suddenly throwing herself at her sister’s feet; ‘I can bear no more.’
‘No, there’s plenty more to bear,’ said her sister, caressing the head which was buried in her coverings. ‘You cannot get out of the world like that. It is me that has the easy task. I have but to bide quiet and let Him do a’—me that took pride in being the wisest of the two, and able to guide you. And it is you that will have all to bear. ”