Chapter Eighteen.
Openings.
The autumn of this year is even now held in memory in the island as the dearest ever known. The men were all gone to Inverness, to act under the orders of President Forbes in defending the king’s cause; and the women they left behind pined for news which seldom or never came. As the days grew short and dark, there was none of the activity and mirth within doors which in northern climates usually meet the advances of winter. In the cluster of houses about Macdonald’s farm, there was dulness and silence in the evenings, and anxious thoughts about fathers, husbands, and brothers, with dread of the daylight which would bring round the perpetual ineffectual watch for a boat on the waters, bearing news of the brave companies of the Macdonalds and Macleods. Sir Alexander remained in Skye, to watch against treason and danger there, while Macleod had gone with the two companies. Such a thing as murmuring against the chief was never heard of; but there were few of the women who did not silently think, now and then, that Sir Alexander might let them have a little more news—might consider their anxiety, and send a messenger when he had tidings from Inverness. This was unjust to Sir Alexander, who was no better off for news than themselves. The rebels were so far successful that messengers could not carry letters with any security by land or sea. It was only by folding his notes so small as to admit of their being hidden in corners of the dress that the President could get them conveyed to the authorities at Edinburgh; and his correspondence with the Government was managed by sending messengers in open boats to Berwick, whence the garrison officer forwarded the despatches to London. In such a state of things, the inhabitants of remote western islands must bear suspense as well as they could.
No one bore it so well as the Widow Fleming. Her only son was in one of the absent companies; she had no other near relation in the world; and she had on her hands a sinking and heart-sick neighbour, whose pains of suspense were added to her own. Yet Annie was the most cheerful person now on the island. When Helsa was fatigued and dispirited by her attendance on Lady Carse, and was sent home for a day’s holiday, she always came back with alacrity, saying that after all, the Macdonalds’ side of the island was the most dismal of the two. Nobody there cared to sing, whereas Annie would always sing when asked, and often was heard to do so when alone. And she had such a store of tales about the old sea-kings, and the heroes of these islands, and of Scotch history, that some of the younger women came night after night to listen. As they knitted or spun, or let fall their work, while their eyes were fixed on Annie, they forget the troubles of their own time, and the blasts and rains through which they should have to find their way home.
At the end of these evenings, Lady Carse often declared herself growing better; and she then went to sleep on the imagination that she would soon be restored to Edinburgh life by Mr Hope’s means, and be happy at last. In the morning, she always declared herself sinking, and fretted over the hardship of dying just when her release was drawing near. Annie thought she was sinking, and never contradicted her when she said so; but yet she tried to bring some of the cheerfulness of the evenings into the morning. She sympathised in the pain of suspense, and of increasing weakness when life was brightening; but she steadily spoke of hope.
She was sincerely convinced that efforts which could not fail were making for Lady Carse’s release, and she thought it likely that the mother and children would meet on earth, though it were only to exchange a hope that they might meet in heaven. Sincerely expecting some great and speedy change in the poor lady’s fortunes, she could dwell upon the prospect from day to day with a sympathy which did not disappoint even Lady Carse. Every morning she rose with the feeling that great things might happen before night; and every night she assured her eager neighbour that no doubt somebody had been busy on her behalf during the day. Whether Lady Carse owned it to herself or not, this was certainly the least miserable winter she had passed since she had left Edinburgh.
“I am better, I am sure,” she joyfully declared one night: “better in every way. How do I look? Tell me how I look.”
“Sadly thin; not so as to do justice to the good food the steward sent you,” said Annie, cheerfully. “I should like to see these little hands not quite so thin.”
“Ah! that is nothing. Everybody is thin and smoke-dried at the end of a stormy winter,” declared Lady Carse. “But I feel so much better! You say it is hope; but you see how well I bear suspense.”
“I always have thought,” said Annie, “that nothing is so good for us all as happiness and peace. Your happiness in hoping to see your children soon, and in obtaining justice, has done you a great deal of good; and I trust there is much more in store yet.”
“O yes; and when I get back to my friends again, I shall be happier than I was. We learn some things as we go on in life. I sometimes think that I should in some respects act differently if I had to live my life over again.”
“We all feel that,” said Annie.
“You know that feeling? Well, there have been some things in myself which I rather wonder at now; some things that I would not do now. I once struck my husband.”
“Once!” thought Annie in amazement.
“And I think I may have been too peremptory with the children. There was nobody then to lead me to discover such things as I do when I am with you; and I believe now that if I were at home again—I hope—I think—”
“What will you do if it pleases God to restore you to your home?”
“Why, I have been told that they were afraid of me at home. Heaven knows why! for I should have thought that pompous, heartless, rigid, tyrannical wretch, my husband, was the one to be afraid of; and not a warm-hearted creature like me.”
“Perhaps they were afraid of him too.”
“O yes, to be sure; and that is why I am here. But they need not have cared for anything I say under an impulse. They might have known that I love people when they do me justice. That, I own, I cannot dispense with. I must have justice. But if people give me my due, I am ready enough to love them.”
“And how will you do differently now, if you get home?”
“I think I would be more dignified than I sometimes have been. I would rely more upon myself. I may have encouraged my enemies by letting them see how they could wound my sensitive feelings. I should not have been so ill-treated by the whole world if I had not made some mistake of that kind. I would rely more on myself, and let them see that they could not touch my peace. Would not that be right?”
“Certainly; by your having a peace which they could not touch.”
There was a short pause; after which Lady Carse said, in no unamiable tone, “I do not say these things by way of asking your advice. I know my own feelings and circumstances, and the behaviour of my family to me, better than you can do. I may be left to judge for myself; but it is natural, when a summons may come any day, to tell you what I think of the past; and of how I shall act in the time to come.”
“I quite understand that,” said Annie. “And I like to hear all you like to tell me without judging or advising, unless you ask me.”
“Well, I fairly own to you—and you may take the confession for what it is worth—if I had to live the last twenty years over again, I should in some respects act differently, I now believe that I have said and done some things that I had better not. But I was driven to it. I have been most cruelly treated.”
“You have.”
“And if they had only known how to treat me! Why, you are not afraid of me, are you?”
“Not in the least.”
“And you never were?”
“Never.”
“Why, there now! But you are a woman of sense.”
“I am not afraid of you, and never was,” said Annie looking calmly in her face; “but I can understand how some people might be.”
“Not people of sense,” exclaimed Lady Carse quickly.
“Perhaps not; but we do not expect all that we have dealings with to be people of sense.”
“No, indeed! Nobody need ever look for sense in Lord Carse, for one. Well! I am so glad you never were afraid of me; and I am sure, moreover, that you love me: you are so kind to me!”
“I do,” said Annie, smiling in reply to the wistful gaze.
Lady Carse’s eyes filled with tears.
“Good night! God bless you!” said she.
“She says,” thought Annie, “that I may take her confession for what it is worth. How little she knows the worth of that confession!—a confession that any acquaintance she has would blush or mock at, and that any pastor in Scotland would rebuke! but to one who knows her as I do, how precious it is! I like to be called to rejoice with the neighbours when a child is born into the world: but it is a greater thing to sit here alone and rejoice over the birth of a new soul in this poor lady. It is but a feeble thing, this new born soul—born so much too late; it is little better than blind and helpless, and with hard struggles coming on before it has strength to meet them. But still it is breathing with God’s breath; and it may come freely to Christ. Christ always spoke to souls; and what were the years of man’s life to Him? So I take it as an invitation in such a case as this, when He says, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me.’ O may the way be kept clear for this infant soul to come to Him!”
Annie had all the kindly and cheerful instincts which simple hearts have everywhere; and among them the wish to welcome the newly born with music. With the same feeling which make the people of many a heathen island and Christian country pour out their music round the dwelling which is gladdened by a new birth, Annie now sang a cheerful religious welcome to the young conscience which she trusted must henceforth live and grow for ever. Her voice was heard next door, just so as to be favourable to rest. Without knowing the occasion of the song, the lady reposed upon it; and without knowing it, Annie sang her charge to sleep, as she had often done when Rollo was an infant on her knee.
When at daylight she rose to put out her lamp, and observe the weather, she saw what made her dress quickly, instead of going to bed for her needful morning hour of sleep. A boat was making for the harbour through the difficulties of the wintry sea. It rose and was borne on the long swell so fast and so fearfully, that it appeared as if nothing could save it from dashing on the ledges of projecting rock; and then, before it reached them, it sank out of sight, to be lifted up and borne along as before. There were four rowers, a steersman, and two others, muffled in cloaks. Annie watched them till the boat disappeared in the windings of the harbour; and she was out on the hill-side, in the cold February wind, when she saw the whole party ascending from the shore, and taking the road to Macdonald’s.
Here was news! There must be news. Better not tell even Helsa till she had heard the news. So the widow made what haste she could by the nearer road; but her best haste could not compare with the ordinary pace of the strangers. They had arrived long before she reached Macdonald’s gate.
She walked straight in: and as she did so, one of the gentlemen who was standing before the fire glanced at another who was walking up and down.
“We need no sentinels here, my lord,” said the latter in reply to the glance. “There are none but women and children on the island, and they are all loyally disposed.”
“This is Sir Alexander Macdonald,” said the hostess to Annie. And then she told the chief that this was the Widow Fleming, who had no doubt come to obtain tidings of her son, who had gone with the company under Macleod.
“The Lord President will give you more exact news of the company than I can,” said Sir Alexander. “I only know that my people are marched to Aberdeen to protect that city from the insolence of the rebels.”
The President, who was sitting by the fire, looked up kindly, and cheerfully told the widow that he had good news to give of the company from these islands. They had not been in any engagement, and were all in good health when they marched for Aberdeen, a fortnight before. “And are they all in their duty, my lord?”
“You remind me, friend, that I ought to have put that before my account of their health and safety. They are in their duty, being proof, so far, against both threat and seduction from the rebels.”
“Thus far?”
“Why, yes; I used those words because their loyalty to the king is likely to be tried to the utmost at the present time. The king’s cause is in adversity, we will hope only for a short time. The rebels have won a battle at Falkirk, and dispersed the king’s troops; and this gentleman, the Earl of Loudon,” pointing to the one who was standing by the fire, “and I have had to run away from my house at Culloden, and throw ourselves on the hospitality of Sir Alexander Macdonald.”
“And what will become of your house, my lord?”
“I have thrown my house and fortune into the cause, as you have thrown something much more important—your son. If you can wait God’s disposal cheerfully, much more should I. I cannot bestow a thought on my house.”
“Except,” said Sir Alexander, “that you have nothing else to think about here; and nothing to do but to think, for this day, at least. We must remain here. So safe as it is, in comparison with any part of Skye, or even Barra, I should recommend your staying here till we have some assurance of safety elsewhere.”
“I will venture to offer something for the Lord President to think of and to do,” said the widow, coming forward with an earnestness which fixed everybody’s attention at once, and made Sir Alexander stop in his walk. He was about to command silence on Annie’s part, but a glance at her face showed him that this would be useless.
“Let me first be sure that I am right,” said Annie. “Is the Lord President whom I speak to named Duncan Forbes? And is he a friend of Lord Carse?”
“I am Duncan Forbes, and Lord Carse is an acquaintance of mine.”
“Has he ever told you that his unhappy wife is not dead, as he pretended, but living in miserable banishment on this island?”
“On this island! Nonsense!” cried Sir Alexander.
When assured by the hostess and Annie that it was so, he swore at his steward, his tenant, and himself. On first hearing of the alarm being taken by the lady’s friends at Edinburgh, he had ordered her removal to Saint Kilda, and had supposed it effected long ago. The troubles of the time, which left no boat or men disposable, had caused the delay; and now, between his rage at any command of his having been disregarded, and his sense of his absurdity in bringing a friend of his prisoner to her very door, he was perfectly exasperated. He muttered curses as he strode up and down.
Meantime the Lord President was quietly preparing himself for a walk. Everybody but Annie entreated him to stay till he had breakfasted, and warmed himself, Lord Loudon adding that the lady would not fly away in the course of the next hour if she had been detained so many years. It did not escape the President’s observant eye that these words struck Sir Alexander, and that he made a movement towards the door. There being a boat and rowers at hand, she might be found to have flown within the hour, if he stayed to breakfast.
He approached Sir Alexander, and laid his hand on his arm, saying—
“My good friend, I advise you to yield up this affair into my hands as the first law officer of Scotland. All chance of concealment of this lady’s case has been over for some time. Measures have been taken for some months to compel you to resign the charge which you surely cannot wish to retain—”
Sir Alexander broke in with curses on himself for having ever been persuaded into involving himself in such a business.
“By the desire, I presume, of Lord Carse, Lord Lovat, Mr Forster, and others, not now particularly distinguished for their loyalty.”
“That is the cursed part of it,” muttered Sir Alexander. “It was to further their Jacobite plots that they put this vixen out of the way, because she had some secrets in her power, and they laid it all on her temper, which, they told me, caused my lord to go in fear of his reputation and his life.”
“There was truth in that, to my knowledge,” observed the President; “and there were considerations connected with the daughters—natural considerations, though leading to unnatural cruelty.”
“Politics were at the bottom, for all that,” said the chief, “And now, as she has been my prisoner for so long, I suppose they will throw the whole responsibility upon me. The rebel leaders hate me for my loyalty as they hate the devil. They hate me—”
“As they hate Lord Loudon and myself,” interposed the President, “which they do, I take it, much more bitterly than they ever did the devil. But, Sir Alexander, let me point out to you that your course in regard to this lady is now clear. If the rebellion succeeds, let the leaders find that you have taken out of their hands this weapon, which they might otherwise use for your destruction. Let them find you acting with me in restoring the lady to her rights. If, as I anticipate, the rebellion is yet to fail, this is still your only safe course. It will afford you the best chance of impunity—which impunity, however, it is not for me to promise—for the illegality and the guilt of your past conduct to the victim. There is something in our friend’s countenance here,” he continued, turning to the widow with a smile, “which I should like to understand. I fear I have not her good opinion, as I could wish.”
Annie told exactly what she was thinking: that all this reasoning was wrong, because wasteful of the right. Surely it was the shortest and clearest thing to say that, late as it was, it was better for Sir Alexander to begin doing right than persist in the wrong.
“I quite agree with you,” said the President, “and if people generally were like you, we should be saved most of the argumentation of our law courts—if, indeed, we should need the courts at all, or, perhaps, even any human law. Come, Sir Alexander, let me beg your company to call on Lady Carse. One needs the countenance of the chief, who is always and everywhere welcome in his own territory, to excuse so early a visit.”
Sir Alexander positively declined going. He was, in truth, afraid of the lady’s tongue in the presence of a legal functionary, before whom he could neither order nor threaten violence.
It was a great relief to Annie that he did not go. She needed the opportunity of the walk to prepare the President to meet his old acquaintance, and to speak wisely to her.
Even the President, with his habitual self-possession, could not conceal his embarrassment at the change in Lady Carse. The light from the window shone upon her face; yet he glanced at the widow, as in doubt whether this could be the right person, before he made his complaints. In the midst of her agitation at the meeting, Lady Carse said to herself that the good man was losing his memory; and, indeed, it was time; for he must be above sixty. She wondered whether it was a sign that her husband might be losing his faculties too: but she feared Duncan Forbes was a good deal the older of the two.
It would have astonished those who did not know Duncan Forbes to see him now. He was a fugitive from the rebels, who might at the moment be burning his house, and impoverishing his tenants; he had been wandering in the mountains for many days, and had spent the last night upon the sea; his clothes were weather-stained, his periwig damp, and his buckles rusted; he was at the moment weary and aching with cold and hunger; he was in the presence of a lady whom he had for years supposed dead and buried; and he was under the shock of seeing a face once full of health and animation now not only wasted, but alive with misery in every fibre: yet he sat on a bench in this island dwelling—in his eyes a hovel—with his gold-headed cane between his knees, talking with all the courtesy, calmness, and measured cheerfulness, which Edinburgh knew so well. Nothing could be better for Lady Carse than his manner. It actually took away the sense of wonder at their meeting, and meeting thus. While he had stood at the threshold, and she heard whom she was to see, her brain had reeled, and her countenance had become such as it might well dismay him to see; but such was the influence of his composure, and of the associations which his presence revived, that she soon appeared in Annie’s eyes a totally altered person. As the two sat at breakfast, Annie saw before her the gentleman and lady complete, in spite of every disguise of dress and circumstance.
At the close of the meal, Annie slipped away to her own house: but it was not long before she was sent for, at the desire, not of Lady Carse, but of the President. He wished her to hear what he had to relate. He told of Mr Hope’s exertions in Edinburgh, and of his having at length ventured upon an illegal proceeding for which only the disturbance of the times could be pleaded in excuse. He had sent out a vessel, containing a few armed men, and Mrs Ruthven, who had undertaken to act as guide to Lady Carse’s residence. It was understood that the captain had set Mrs Ruthven ashore in Lorn, through some disagreement between them; and that the vessel had proceeded as far as Barra, when the captain was so certainly informed that the lady had been removed to the mainland that he turned back; pleading, further, that there was such evident want of sense in Mrs Ruthven, and such contradictory testimony between her and her husband, that he doubted whether any portion of their story was true. It was next believed that a commission of enquiry would be soon sent to this and other islands: but this could not take place until the public tranquillity should be in some degree restored.
“Before that, I shall be dead,” sighed Lady Carse, impatiently.
“There is no need now to wait for the commission,” said the President. “Where I am, all violations of the law must cease. Your captivity is now at an end, except in so far as you are subject to ill health, or, like myself, to winter weather and most wintry fortunes.”
“The day is come, then,” said Annie, through shining tears. “You are now delivered out of the hand of man, and have to wait only God’s pleasure.”
“What matters it,” murmured Lady Carse, “how you call my misfortunes? Here I sit, a shivering exile—”
“So far like myself,” observed the President, moving nearer the scanty fire.
“You have not been heart-sick for years under insufferable wrongs,” declared Lady Carse. “And you have not the grave open at your feet while everything you care for is beckoning to you to come away. You—”
“Pardon me, my old friend,” said he, mildly. “That is exactly my case. I am old: the grave is open at my feet; and beyond it stands she who, though early lost, has been the constant passion of my life. Perhaps my heart may have pined under the privation of her society as sensibly as yours under afflictions more strange in the eyes of the world. But it is not wise—it does not give strength, but impair it—thus to compare human afflictions. I should prefer cheerfully encouraging each other to wait for release; I see little prospect of any release this day for us exiles; so let me see what my memory is worth in my old age—let me see what I can recall of our Janet. You know I always consider Janet my own by favouritism; and she called me grandfather the last time we met, as she used to do before she was able to spell so long a word.”
He told so much of Janet, that Lady Carse changed her opinion about his loss of memory. Again Annie stole home: and there did the President seek her, after a long conversation with her neighbour.
“I wish to know,” said he, “whether the great change that I observe in this lady is recent.”
“She is greatly changed within a few months,” replied the widow: “and I think she has sunk within a few days. I see, sir, that you look for her release soon.”
“If the change has been rapid of late,” he replied, “it is my opinion that she is dying.”
“Is there anything that you would wish done?” asked Annie.
“What can we do? I perceive that she is in possession of what is perhaps the only aid her case admits of—a friend who can at once soothe her earthly life, and feed her heavenly one.”
Annie bowed her head, and then said—
“You would not have me conceal her state from herself, I think, sir.”
“I would not. I believe she is aware that I think her very ill—decisively ill.”
“I hope she is. I have seen in her of late that which makes me desire for her the happy knowledge that she is going home to a place where she may find more peace than near her enemies in a city of the earth.” Fancying that the President shook his head, Annie went on—
“I would not be presumptuous, sir, for another any more than for myself: but when a better life is permitted to begin, ever so feebly, here, surely God sends death, not to put it out, but to remove it to a safer place.”
The President smiled kindly, and walked away.