Mrs. Macdonald

“ Mr. Macdonald is a saint, but a saint is a great deal the better of a practical wife. Mrs. Macdonald is an example of what can be accomplished by a woman both in a church and at home. I sit rebuked before her."
"Oh, my dear," said Mrs. Jowett, "no one could possibly be more helpful than you and your sisters. It's I who am the drone.... Now I must go."
The Miss Watsons outstayed the other guests, and Pamela, remembering Jean's advice, produced a few stray photographs of relations which were regarded with much interest and some awe. ”

“ Vague shadowy forms went flitting about over the walls and low dome, like loose rain-clouds over a grey-blue sky.
The princess stood waiting me, in a robe embroidered with argentine rings and discs, rectangles and lozenges, close together—a silver mail. It fell unbroken from her neck and hid her feet, but its long open sleeves left her arms bare.
In the room was a table of ivory, bearing cakes and fruit, an ivory jug of milk, a crystal jug of wine of a pale rose-colour, and a white loaf.
"Here we do not kill to eat," she said; "but I think you will like what I can give you." ”

“ Macdonald, "but when one has to sell, it's different to buying. One gives one's things away."
As a matter of fact, the late Mr. Macdonald had given fifty shillings for the cameo brooch in question, having bought it in a pawnshop in the Strand; but neither Mrs. Macdonald nor Nancy were aware of that fact.
"Dear Mother," said Nancy, "I would not worry. You have still a fortnight before you need settle it one way or the other. A great many things may turn up in a fortnight." ”

“ Macdonald gazed into her eyes: she did not wince, but suddenly smiled; the color came into her cheeks.
"Ye have a wonderful face, Helen Fraser," he said. "Are you a princess of the clan?"
"I am Lord Eraser's daughter," she answered, "and heiress of our family."
"They should be proud of you," said Macdonald. "Are you a maid or wife?"
"I am unwed," she said, "and am ever like to be, for I do find it hard to love." ”

“ The maiden face that smiled and blushed on him;
That lady face, insphered beyond his earth,
Yet visible to him as any star
That shines unwavering. I cannot tell
In words the tenderness that glowed across
His bosom—burned it clean in will and thought;
"Shall that sweet face be blown by laughter rude
Out of the soul where it has deigned to come,
But will not stay what maidens may not hear?"
He almost wept for shame, that those two thoughts
Should ever look each other in the face,
Meeting in his house. Thus he made to her,
For love, an offering of purity. ”

“ My maiden! for true wife is always maiden
To the true husband: thou art mine for ever.
Lilia.
What gentle hopes keep passing to and fro!
Thou shadowest me with thine own rest, my God;
A cloud from thee stoops down and covers me.
[She falls asleep on her knees]
SCENE III.—JULIAN on the summit of a mountain-peak. The stars are brilliant around a crescent moon, hanging half-way between the mountain and the zenith. Below lies a sea of vapour. Beyond rises a loftier pinnacle, across which is stretched a bar of cloud. LILY lies on the cloud, looking earnestly into the mist below. ”

“ Every one you meet is a mine of interest, and sharp contrasts present themselves. Mrs. Macdonald discusses fur and deer-meat with Jack Johnson. He is a trapper who plays the game alone and who last year was reduced to killing his favourite dog for food. Current report credits him with having "killed his man in the Yukon." Mrs. Macdonald is a Loucheux woman who, at the age of fourteen or fifteen, married Archdeacon Macdonald of the English Church and for eight long years afterwards assisted him in his life work of translating the Gospels into the Loucheux language. ”

“ The horse bent his head over my shoulder lovingly. I twisted my hands in his mane and scrambled onto his back, not without aid from certain protuberant bones.
"He would outspeed any leopard in creation!" I cried.
"Not that way at night," answered the raven; "the road is difficult.— But come; loss now will be gain then! To wait is harder than to run, and its meed is the fuller. Go on, my son—straight to the cottage. I shall be there as soon as you. It will rejoice my wife's heart to see son of hers on that horse!"
I sat silent. The horse stood like a block of marble. ”

“ But I tell thee, roundhead, I love her better than ever roundhead could.'
'I know not, Scudamore. Nor do I mean to judge thee when I say that no man who loves not the truth can love a woman in the grand way a woman ought to be loved.'
'Tell me not I do not love her, or I will rise and kill thee. I love her even to doing what my soul hateth for her sake. Damned roundhead, she loves THEE.'
The last words came from him almost in a shriek, and he fell back panting.
Richard sat silent for a few moments, his heart surging and sinking.
Then he said quietly:—
'It may be so, sir Rowland. ”

“ The poor girl burst into a passion of weeping, fell on her knees before him, and holding up her clasped hands, cried out in a voice of sob-choked agony—for she was not used to tears, and it was to her a rending of the heart to weep—
'Save me, save me, my lord! I have no friend in the world who can help me but thee.'
'No friend! What meanest thou, Dorothy?' said lord Herbert, taking her two clasped hands between his. 'There is my Margaret and my father!'
'Alas, my lord! they mean well by me, but they do not believe me; and if your lordship believe me no more than they, I must go from Raglan. ”

“ During Miss MacDonald's stay at Clanranald's house, which was till the Friday, June 27th, O'Neil went several times betwixt [fol. 526.] the Prince and Miss, in which interval another scheme was proposed, that the Prince should go under the care of a gentleman to the northward, [241] but that failing them, they behoved to have recourse to that agreed upon before; and accordingly Lady Clanranald, one Mrs. MacDonald, O'Neil, Miss Flora MacDonald, and her servant, Neil MacKechan, went to the place where the Prince was, being about eight Scotch miles. ”

“ She took a step inside the door, sent her small eyes peering first into every corner her sight could reach, and then said:
'Are we alone—we two, master Richard?'
'There's a cat in the next stall, mistress: if she can hear, she can't speak.'
'Don't be too sure of that, master Richard. Be there no one else?'
'Not a body; soul there may be—who knows?'
'I know there is none. I will tell thee my charm, or what else I may that thou would wish to know; for he is a true gentleman who will help a woman because she is a woman, be she as old and ugly as Goody Rees herself. ”

“ But as she looked, the horizon widened out, and the dome of the sky ascended, till the grandeur seized upon her soul, and she fell on her knees and wept. Now the heavens seemed to bend lovingly over her, and to stretch out wide cloud-arms to embrace her; the earth lay like the bosom of an infinite love beneath her, and the wind kissed her cheek with an odour of roses. She sprang to her feet, and turned, in an agony of hope, expecting to behold the face of the father, but there stood only her brother, looking calmly though lovingly on her emotion. ”

“ For us, we saw a splendour, a glorious woman centring the dark. Lona sprang from her horse, and bounded to her. I sprang from mine, and followed Lona.
“Mother! mother!” she cried, and her clear, lovely voice echoed in the dome.
The princess shivered; her face grew almost black with hate, her eyebrows met on her forehead. She rose to her feet, and stood.
“Mother! mother!” cried Lona again, as she leaped on the daïs, and flung her arms around the princess.
An instant more and I should have reached them!—in that instant I saw Lona lifted high, and dashed on the marble floor. ”

“ A man pushed against my sacred burden: with a kick I sent him away howling. But the crowd pressed upon me, and fearing for the dead that was beyond hurt, I clasped my treasure closer, and freed my right arm. That instant, however, a commotion arose in the street behind me; the crowd broke; and through it came the Little Ones I had left in the palace. Ten of them were upon four of the elephants; on the two other elephants lay the princess, bound hand and foot, and quite still, save that her eyes rolled in their ghastly sockets. The two other Little Ones rode behind her on Lona’s horse. ”

“ They call me the Cat-woman. It is not my name."
I remembered what the children had told me—that she was very ugly, and scratched. But her voice was gentle, and its tone a little apologetic: she could not be a bad giantess!
"You shall not hear it from me," I answered, "Please tell me what I MAY call you!"
"When you know me, call me by the name that seems to you to fit me," she replied: "that will tell me what sort you are. People do not often give me the right one. It is well when they do."
"I suppose, madam, you live in the cottage I saw in the heart of the moon?" ”

“ Her dark hair flowed behind, wavy but uncurled, down to her waist, and against it her form stood clear in its robe of white.
"Now," said she, "you will believe me."
Overcome with the presence of a beauty which I could now perceive, and drawn towards her by an attraction irresistible as incomprehensible, I suppose I stretched out my arms towards her, for she drew back a step or two, and said—
"Foolish boy, if you could touch me, I should hurt you. Besides, I was two hundred and thirty-seven years old, last Midsummer eve; and a man must not fall in love with his grandmother, you know." ”

“ She rose as she said the words, and approaching him, bent on him out of the shadow the full strength of eyes whose light had not yet begun to pale before the dawn we call death, and held out a white hand glimmering in the dusk: she knew only too well the power of a still fine woman of any age over a youth of twenty. ”

“ Allison and I are distinctly in a minority. I was nearly being carried there forcibly myself to-night; and I only escaped, I believe, because Mrs. Macdonald has evolved, from the label on my portmanteau that I am the coming squire, and must be allowed some liberty of opinion.
"'You'll be going to church to-night, sir,' she said, beginning the attack with gentle firmness. 'John and I lock up the house and hide the key under the mat, in case you come back before we do. We have a walk these summer evenings when church is over.'
"'Thank you, Mrs. Macdonald, you can leave the key in the door ”

“ He yielded to his mother's entreaties to spend the morning in bed, but was up long before the evening in the hope of Mercy's coming, confident that his mother would now be like herself to her. She came; the mother took her in her arms, and begged her forgiveness; nor, having thus embraced her, could she any more treat her relation to her son with coldness. If the girl was ready, as her conduct showed, to leave all for Alister, she had saved her soul alive, she was no more one of the enemy! ”

“ Without a word, the wise woman stooped, and gathered the fragments—did not leave searching until she had gathered the last atom, and she laid them all carefully, one by one, in the fire, now blazing high on the hearth. Then she stood up and looked at the princess, who had been watching her sulkily.
“Rosamond,” she said, with a countenance awful in its sternness, “until you have cleansed this room—”
“She calls it a room!” sneered the princess to herself.
“You shall have no morsel to eat. You may drink of the well, but nothing else you shall have. ”

“ After Miss Flora had got up, Mrs. MacDonald told her that she wanted much to have a lock of the Prince's hair, and that she behoved to go into his room and get it for her. Miss Flora refused to do as she desired, because the Prince was not yet out of bed. 'What then,' said Mrs. MacDonald, 'no harm will happen to you. He is too good to harm you or any [fol. 213.] person. You must instantly go in and get me the lock.' Mrs. MacDonald, taking hold of Miss with one hand, knocked at the door of the room with the other. The Prince called, 'Who is there?' Mrs. ”

“ Macdonald, wife of John Macdonald of Kirkebost, in North Uist, who had come from the Long island, of the probability of his appearing speedily in Skye. Lady Margaret, on being informed of the prince’s arrival in her neighbourhood, was greatly alarmed for his safety. Her active benevolence was ever seconded by superior talents; and, on the present occasion, she displayed a presence of mind and readiness of invention, which corresponded with these high qualifications. Mr. Macdonald of Kingsburgh, Sir Alexander’s factor, being then in the house, she resolved to consult him in this emergency. ”

“ At which of these gates does thee think to lead out thy mare?'
'An' I pass at all, mother, it will be on her back, not at her head.'
'Thou wilt not pass, my son. Be counselled. To thy mare, thou wilt but lose thyself.'
Richard heard her as though he heard her not.
'At what hour doth the moon rise, mistress Rees?' he asked.
'What would thou with the moon?" she returned. "Is not she the enemy of him who roves for plunder? Shines she not that the thief may be shaken out of the earth?'
'I am not thief enough to steal in the dark, mother. ”

“ I shall have your breakfast waiting for you. One thing more: the beasts have not yet all gone home to their holes; but I give you my word, not one will touch you so long as you keep coming nearer to my house.”
She ceased. Rosamond sat waiting to hear something more; but nothing came. She looked up; she was alone.
Alone once more! Always being left alone, because she would not yield to what was right! Oh, how safe she had felt under the wise woman’s cloak! She had indeed been good to her, and she had in return behaved like one of the hyenas of the awful wood! ”