SOMETHING STRANGE.
Alister did not feel inclined to go home. The night was more like Mercy, and he lingered with the night, inhabiting the dream that it was Mercy"s house, and she in the next room. He turned into the castle, climbed the broken steps, and sat on the corner of the wall, the blank hill before him, asleep standing, with the New House on its shoulder, and the moonlight reflected from Mercy"s window under which he had so lately stood. He sat for an hour, and when he came down, was as much disinclined to go home as before: he could not rest in his chamber, with no Ian on the other side of its wall! He went straying down the road, into the valley, along the burnside, up the steep beyond it, and away to the hill-farm and the tomb.
The moon was with him all the way, but she seemed thinking to herself rather than talking to him. Why should the strange, burnt-out old cinder of a satellite be the star of lovers? The answer lies hid, I suspect, in the mysteries of light reflected.
He wandered along, careless of time, of moonset, star-shine, or sunrise, brooding on many things in the rayless radiance of his love, and by the time he reached the tomb, was weary with excitement and lack of sleep. Taking the key from where it was cunningly hidden, he unlocked the door and entered.
He started back at sight of a gray-haired old man, seated on one of the stone chairs, and leaning sadly over the fireless hearth: it must be his uncle! The same moment he saw it was a ray from the sinking moon, entering by the small, deep window, and shining feebly on the chair. He struck a light, kindled the peats on the hearth, and went for water. Returning from the well he found the house dark as before; and there was the old man again, cowering over the extinguished fire! The idea lasted but a moment; once more the level light of the moon lay cold and gray upon the stone chair! He tried to laugh at his fancifulness, but did not quite succeed. Several times on the way up, he had thought of his old uncle: this must have given the shape to the moonlight and the stone! He made many attempts to recall the illusion, but in vain. He relighted the fire, and put on the kettle. Going then for a book to read till the water boiled, he remembered a letter which, in the excitement of the afternoon, he had put in his pocket unread, and forgotten. It was from the family lawyer in Glasgow, informing him that the bank in which his uncle had deposited the proceeds of his sale of the land, was in a state of absolute and irrecoverable collapse; there was not the slightest hope of retrieving any portion of the wreck.
Alister did not jump up and pace the room in the rage of disappointment; neither did he sit as one stunned and forlorn of sense. He felt some bitterness in the loss of the hope of making up to his people for his uncle"s wrong; but it was clear that if G.o.d had cared for his having the money, he would have cared that he should have it. Here was an opportunity for absolute faith and contentment in the will that looks after all our affairs, the small as well as the great.
Those who think their affairs too insignificant for G.o.d"s regard, will justify themselves in lying crushed under their seeming ruin.
Either we live in the heart of an eternal thought, or we are the product and sport of that which is lower than we.
"It was evil money!" said the chief to himself; "it was the sale of a birthright for a mess of pottage! I would have turned it back into the right channel, the good of my people! but after all, what can money do? It was discontent with poverty that began the ruin of the highlands! If the heads of the people had but lived pure, active, sober, unostentatious lives, satisfied to be poor, poverty would never have overwhelmed them! The highlands would have made Scotland great with the greatness of men dignified by high-hearted contentment, and strong with the strength of men who could do without!" Therewith it dawned upon Alister how, when he longed to help his people, his thoughts had always turned, not to G.o.d first, but to the money his uncle had left him. He had trusted in a fancy--no less a fancy when in his uncle"s possession than when cast into the quicksand of the bank; for trust in money that is, is no less vain, and is farther from redress, than trust in money that is not. In G.o.d alone can trust repose. His heart had been so faithless that he did not know it was! He thought he loved G.o.d as the first and last, the beginning, middle, and end of all things, and he had been trusting, not in G.o.d, but in uncertain riches, that is in vile Mammon! It was a painful and humiliating discovery. "It was well,"
he said, "that my false deity should be taken from me! For my idolatry perhaps, a good gift has failed to reach my people! I must be more to them than ever, to make up to them for their loss with better than money!"
He fell on his knees, and thanked G.o.d for the wind that had blown cold through his spirit, and slain at least one evil thing; and when he rose, all that was left of his trouble was a lump in his throat, which melted away as he walked home through the morning air on the hills. For he could not delay; he must let his mother know their trouble, and, as one who had already received help from on high, help her to bear it! If the messenger of Satan had buffeted him, he had but broken a way for strength!
But at first he could not enjoy as he was wont the glory of the morning. It troubled him. Would a single note in the song of the sons of the morning fail because G.o.d did or would not do a thing?
Could G.o.d deserve less than thanks perfect from any one of his creatures? That man could not know G.o.d who thanked him but for what men call good things, nor took the evil as from the same love! He scorned himself, and lifted up his heart. As he reached the brow of his last descent, the sun rose, and with it his soul arose and shone, for its light was come, and the glory of the Lord was risen upon it. "Let G.o.d," he said, "take from us what he will: himself he can only give!" Joyful he went down the hill. G.o.d was, and all was well!
CHAPTER XII
THE POWER OF DARKNESS.
He found his mother at breakfast, wondering what had become of him.
"Are you equal to a bit of bad news, mother?" he asked with a smile.
The mother"s thoughts flew instantly to Ian.
"Oh, it"s nothing about Ian!" said the chief, answering her look.
Its expression changed; she hoped now it was some fresh obstacle between him and Mercy.
"No, mother, it is not that either!" said Alister, again answering her look--with a sad one of his own, for the lack of his mother"s sympathy was the sorest trouble he had. "It is only that uncle"s money is gone--all gone."
She sat silent for a moment, gave a little sigh, and said,
"Well, it will all be over soon! In the meantime things are no worse than they were! His will be done!"
"I should have liked to make a few friends with the mammon of unrighteousness before we were turned out naked!"
"We shall have plenty," answered the mother, "--G.o.d himself, and a few beside! If you could make friends with the mammon, you can make friends without it!"
"Yes, that is happily true! Ian says it was only a lesson for the wise and prudent with money in their pockets--a lesson suited to their limited reception!"
As they spoke, Nancy entered.
"Please, laird," she said, "Donal shoemaker is wanting to see you."
"Tell him to come in," answered the chief.
Donal entered and stood up by the door, with his bonnet under his arm--a little man with puckered face, the puckers radiating from or centering in the mouth, which he seemed to untie like a money-hag, and pull open by means of a smile, before he began to speak. The chief shook hands with him, and asked how he could serve him.
"It will not be to your pleasure to know, Macruadh," said Donal, humbly declining to sit, "that I have received this day notice to quit my house and garden!"
The house was a turf-cottage, and the garden might grow two bushels and a half of potatoes.
"Are you far behind with your rent?"
"Not a quarter, Macruadh."
"Then what does it mean?"
"It means, sir, that Strathruadh is to be given to the red deer, and the son of man have nowhere to lay his head. I am the first at your door with my sorrow, but before the day is over you will have--"
Here he named four or five who had received like notice to quit.
"It is a sad business!" said the chief sorrowfully.
"Is it law, sir?"
"It is not easy to say what is law, Donal; certainly it is not gospel! As a matter of course you will not be without shelter, so long as I may call stone or turf mine, but things are looking bad!
Things as well as souls are in G.o.d"s hands however!"
"I learn from the new men on the hills," resumed Donal, "that the new lairds have conspired to exterminate us. They have discovered, apparently, that the earth was not made for man, but for rich men and beasts!" Here the little man paused, and his insignificant face grew in expression grand. "But the day of the Lord will come," he went on, "as a thief in the night. Vengeance is his, and he will know where to give many stripes, and where few.--What would you have us do, laird?"
"I will go with you to the village."
"No, if you please, sir! Better men will be at your door presently to put the same question, for they will do nothing without the Macruadh. We are no more on your land, great is our sorrow, chief, but we are of your blood, you are our lord, and your will is ours.
You have been a nursing father to us, Macruadh!"
"I would fain be!" answered the chief.
"They will want to know whether these strangers have the right to turn us out; and if they have not the right to disseize, whether we have not the right to resist. If you would have us fight, and will head us, we will fall to a man--for fall we must; we cannot think to stand before the redcoats."
"No, no, Donal! It is not a question of the truth; that we should be bound to die for, of course. It is only our rights that are concerned, and they are not worth dying for. That would be mere pride, and denial of G.o.d who is fighting for us. At least so it seems at the moment to me!"
"Some of us would fain fight and have done with it, sir!"
The chief could not help smiling with pleasure at the little man"s warlike readiness: he knew it was no empty boast; what there was of him was good stuff.