"All that is not rooted in him," Ian would say, "all hope or joy that does not turn its face upward, is an idolatry. Our prayers must rise that our thoughts may follow them."
The portion they read contained the saying of the Lord that we must forsake all and follow him if we would be his disciples.
"I am sometimes almost terrified," said Ian, "at the scope of the demands made upon me, at the perfection of the self-abandonment required of me; yet outside of such absoluteness can be no salvation. In G.o.d we live every commonplace as well as most exalted moment of our being. To trust in him when no need is pressing, when things seem going right of themselves, may be harder than when things seem going wrong. At no time is there any danger except in ourselves, and the only danger is of trusting in something else than the living G.o.d, and so getting, as it were, outside of G.o.d. Oh Alister, take care you do not love the land more than the will of G.o.d! Take care you do not love even your people more than the will of G.o.d."
They spent the day on the hill-top, and as there was no sign of storm, remained till the dark night, when the moon came to light them home.
"Perhaps when we are dead," said Alister as they went, "we may be allowed to come here again sometimes! Only we shall not be able to quarry any further, and there is pain in looking on what cannot go on."
"It may be a special pleasure," returned Ian, "in those new conditions, to look into such a changeless cabinet of the past. When we are one with our life, so that no prayer can be denied, there will be no end to the lovely possibilities."
"So I have the people I love, I think I could part with all things else, even the land!" said Alister.
"Be sure we shall not have to part with THEM. We shall yet walk, I think, with our father as of old, where the setting sun sent the shadows of the big horse-gowans that glowed in his red level rays, trooping eastward, as if they would go round the world to meet the sun that had banished them, and die in his glory; the wind of the twilight will again breathe about us like a thought of the living G.o.d haunting our goings, and watching to help us; the stars will yet call to us out of the great night, "Love and be fearless." "Be independent!" cries the world from its" great Bible of the Belly;-says the Lord of men, "Seek ye first the kingdom of G.o.d and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."
Our dependence is our eternity. We cannot live on bread alone; we need every word of G.o.d. We cannot live on air alone; we need an atmosphere of living souls. Should we be freer, Alister, if we were independent of each other? When I am out in the world, my heart is always with mother and you. We must be constantly giving ourselves away, we must dwell in houses of infinite dependence, or sit alone in the waste of a G.o.dless universe."
It was a rough walk in the moonlight over the hills, but full of a rare delight. And while they walked the mother was waiting them, with the joy of St. John, of the Saviour, of G.o.d himself in her heart, the joy of beholding how the men she loved loved each other.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TWO PAIRS.
The next morning, on the way to the village, the brothers overtook Christina and Mercy, and they walked along together.
The young men felt inclined to be the more friendly with the girls, that the men of their own family were so unworthy of them. A man who does not respect a woman because she is a woman, cannot have thorough respect for his own mother, protest as he pleases: he is incapable of it, and cannot know his own incapacity. Alas for girls in a family where the atmosphere of vile thinking, winnowed by the carrion wings of degraded and degrading judgments, infolds them! One of the marvels of the world is, that, with such fathers and brothers, there are so few wicked women. Type of the greater number stands Ophelia, poor, weak, and not very refined, yet honest, and, in all her poverty, immeasurably superior to father and brother.
Christina"s condescension had by this time dwindled almost to the vanishing-point, and her talk was in consequence more natural: the company, conversation, and whole atmosphere of the young men, tended to wake in the girls what was best and sweetest. Reality appeals at once to the real, opens the way for a soul to emerge from the fog of the commonplace, the marsh of plat.i.tude, the Sahara of lies, into the colour and air of life. The better things of humanity often need the sun of friendship to wile them out. A girl, well-bred, tolerably clever, and with some genius of accommodation, will appear to a man possessed of a hundred faculties of which she knows nothing; but his belief will help to rouse them in her. A young man will see an angel where those who love her best see only a nice girl; but he sees not merely what she might be, but what one day she must be.
Christina had been at first rather taken with the ploughman, but she turned her masked batteries now mainly on the soldier. During the dinner she had noted how entirely Ian was what she chose to call a man of the world; and it rendered him in her eyes more worthy of conquest. Besides, as elder sister, must she not protect the inexperienced Mercy?
What is this pa.s.sion for subjugation? this hunger for homage? Is it of h.e.l.l direct, or what is there in it of good to begin with?
Apparently it takes possession of such women as have set up each herself for the object of her worship: she cannot then rest from the effort to bring as many as possible to worship at the same shrine; and to this end will use means as deserving of the fire as any witchcraft.
Christina stopped short with a little cry, and caught Ian"s arm.
"I beg your pardon," she said, "but I cannot bear it a moment longer! Something in my boot hurts me so!"
She limped to the road-side, sat down, accepted the service of Ian to unlace her boot, and gave a sigh of relief when he pulled it off.
He inverted and shook it, then searched and found a nail which must have hurt her severely.
But how to get rid of the cruel projection! Ian"s slender hand could but just reach with its finger-tips the haunted spot. In vain he tried to knock it down against a stone put inside. Alister could suggest nothing. But Mistress Conal"s cottage was near: they might there find something to help! Only Christina could not be left behind, and how was she to walk in a silk stocking over a road frozen hard as gla.s.s? The chief would have carried her, but she would not let him. Ian therefore shod her with his Glengarry bonnet, tying it on with his handkerchief.
There was much merriment over the extemporized shoe, mingled with apologetic grat.i.tude from Christina, who, laughing at her poulticed foot, was yet not displeased at its contrast with the other.
When the chief opened the door of the cottage, there was no one to be seen within. The fire was burning hot and flameless; a three-footed pot stood half in it; other sign of presence they saw none. As Alister stooped searching for some implement to serve their need, in shot a black cat, jumped over his back, and disappeared.
The same instant they heard a groan, and then first discovered the old woman in bed, seemingly very ill. Ian went up to her.
"What is the matter with you, Mistress Conal?" he asked, addressing her in English because of the ladies.
But in reply she poured out a torrent of Gaelic, which seemed to the girls only grumbling, but was something stronger. Thereupon the chief went and spoke to her, but she was short and sullen with him.
He left her to resume his search.
"Let alone," she cried. "When that nail leaves her brog, it will be for your heart."
Ian sought to soothe her.
"She will bring misery on you all!" she insisted.
"You have a hammer somewhere, I know!" said Alister, as if he had not heard her.
"She shall be finding no help in MY house!" answered the old woman in English.
"Very well, Mistress Conal!" returned the chief; "the lady cannot walk home; I shall have to carry her!"
"G.o.d forbid!" she cried. "Go and fetch a wheelbarrow."
"Mistress Conal, there is nothing for it but carry her home in my arms!"
"Give me the cursed brog then. I will draw the nail."
But the chief would not yield the boot; he went out and searched the hill-side until he found a smooth stone of suitable size, with which and a pair of tongs, he beat down the nail. Christina put on the boot, and they left the place. The chief stayed behind the rest for a moment, but the old woman would not even acknowledge his presence.
"What a rude old thing she is! This is how she always treats us!"
said Christina.
"Have you done anything to offend her?" asked Alister.
"Not that we know of. We can"t help being lowlanders!"
"She no doubt bears you a grudge," said Ian, "for having what once belonged to us. I am sorry she is so unfriendly. It is not a common fault with our people."
"Poor old thing! what does it matter!" said Christina.
A woman"s hate was to her no more than the barking of a dog.
They had not gone far, before the nail again a.s.serted itself; it had been but partially subjugated. A consultation was held. It resulted in this, that Mercy and the chief went to fetch another pair of boots, while Ian remained with Christina.
They seated themselves on a stone by the roadside. The sun clouded over, a keen wind blew, and Christina shivered. There was nothing for it but go back to the cottage. The key was in the door, Ian turned it, and they went in. Certainly this time no one was there.
The old woman so lately groaning on her bed had vanished. Ian made up the fire, and did what he could for his companion"s comfort.
She was not pleased with the tone of his attentions, but the way she accepted them made her appear more pleased than Ian cared for, and he became colder and more polite. Piqued by his indifference, she took it nevertheless with a sweetness which belonged to her nature as G.o.d made it, not as she had spoiled it; and even such a b.u.t.terfly as she, felt the influence of a man like Ian, and could not help being more natural in his presence. His truth elicited what there was of hers; the true being drew to the surface what there was of true in the being that was not true. The longer she was in his company, the more she was pleased with him, and the more annoyed with her failure in pleasing him.
It is generally more or less awkward when a young man and maiden between whom is no convergent rush of spiritual currents, find themselves alone together. Ian was one of the last to feel such awkwardness, but he thought his companion felt it; he did his best, therefore, to make her forget herself and him, telling her story after story which she could not but find the more interesting that for the time she was quieted from self, and placed in the humbler and healthier position of receiving the influence of another. For one moment, as he was narrating a hair"s-breadth escape he had had from a company of Tartar soldiers by the friendliness of a young girl, the daughter of a Siberian convict, she found herself under the charm of a certain potency of which he was himself altogether unconscious, but which had carried away hearts more indifferent than hers.