Chapter Nine.

Light at Eventide.

“Bonny Glen Elder!” repeated Archie to himself many times, as, holding his cousin’s hand, he walked over the fair sloping fields and through the sunny gardens. His cousin repeated it, too, sometimes aloud, sometimes sighing the words in regretful silence, remembering all that had come and gone since the happy days when he, a “guileless laddie,” had called the place his home.

The farm had been rented by the Elder family for three generations. Archie’s father had never held it. It had been in the hands of Hugh’s father during his short lifetime; but Archie’s father and grandfather had been born there, and his great-grandfather had spent the greater part of his life on the place; and it quite suited Archie’s ideas of the fitness of things that it should again be held by his cousin, who, though he did not bear the name, was yet of the blood of these men, whose memory was still honoured in the countryside. It suited Hugh’s ideas, too, but with one difference. He knew two or three things that Archie did not know. He had not come back a very rich man, according to his ideas of riches, though he knew the people about him might call him rich. He had come home with no plan of remaining, for he was a young man still, and looked upon the greater part of his life’s work as before him. And through the talk he was keeping up with Archie as they went on, there was running all the time the question, “Should the rest of his work be done in India or in Glen Elder?” It was not an easy question to answer. He felt, with great unhappiness, that, whatever the answer might be, it must give his mother pain.

One thing he had determined upon. His mother was to be again the mistress of Glen Elder. This might be brought to pass in one of two ways. He could lease the farm, as his forefathers had done, and be a farmer, as they had been, living a far easier life than they had lived, however, because of the means he had acquired during the last ten years. Or, he could purchase Glen Elder, and invest the rest of his fortune for the benefit of his mother and his little cousins, and then go back to his business in India again. He thought his mother would like the first plan best; but it did not seem the best to him.

He was afraid of himself. He had never, in his youth, liked a quiet, rural life, and his manner of life for the past ten years had not been such as to prepare him to like it better. He feared that he could never settle down contented and useful in such a life; and he knew that an unwilling sacrifice would never make his mother happy. And, yet, would it be right to leave her, feeble and aged as she was? Of course his going away would be different now. He would leave her in comfortable circumstances, with no doubt about his fate, no fears as to his well-doing, to harass her. But even in such a case it would not be right to go away without her full and free consent.

It spoiled the pleasure of his walk—that and some other thoughts he had; and he sighed as he sat down to rest on a bank where he had often rested when a child.

“I can fancy us all living very happily here, if some things were different,” he said at last.

“What things, Cousin Hugh?” asked Archie, in some surprise.

Hugh laughed.

“I ought to have said, ‘if I were different myself,’ I suppose.”

“But you are different,” said Archie.

“Yes,” said his cousin gravely, after a moment’s hesitation; “but oh, lad, I have many sad things to mind, and sinful things, too. All these years cannot be blotted out nor forgotten.”

“But they are past, Cousin Hugh, and forgiven, and in one sense blotted out. There is nothing of them left that need hinder you from being happy here again.”

“Ah, well, that may be. God is good. But I was thinking of something else when I spoke first. I was thinking that I am not a farmer.”

“But you can learn to be one. It’s easy enough.”

“I am afraid I should not find it easy. I am afraid I should not do justice to the place. It spoils one for a quiet life, to be knocked about in the world as I have been. And I know I could never make my mother happy if I were discontented myself; at least, if she knew of my discontent.”

“She would be sure to see it. You couldn’t hide it from her, if discontent was in your heart. My aunt doesn’t say much, but she sees clearly. But why should you not be happy here? I can’t understand it.”

“No; I trust you may never be able to understand it. Archie, lad, it is one of the penalties of an evil life that it changes the nature, so that the love of pure and simple pleasures, which it drives away, has but a small chance of coming back again, even when the life is amended. It is a sad experience.”

“But an evil life, Cousin Hugh! You should not say that,” said Archie sorrowfully.

“Well, what would you have? A life of disobedience to one’s mother, ten years of forgetfulness—no, not forgetfulness, but neglect of her. Surely that cannot be called other than an evil life. And it bears its fruit.”

There was a long pause; and then Archie said:

“Cousin Hugh, I’ll tell you what I would do. I would speak to my aunt about it. If it is true that you could never settle down contented here, she will be sure to see that it is best for you to go, and she will say so. I once heard James Muir say that he knew no woman who surpassed my aunt in sense and judgment. She will be sure to see what is right, and tell you what to do.”

Pleasure and pain oddly mingled in the feelings with which Hugh listened to his cousin’s grave commendation of his mother’s sense and judgment; but he felt that there was nothing better to be done than to tell her all that was in his heart, and he lost no time in doing so, and Archie’s words were made good. She saw the situation at a glance, and told him “what to do.” Much as she would have liked to have her son near her, she knew that he was too old to acquire new tastes, and too young to be content with a life of comparative inactivity. She told him so, heartily and cheerfully, not marring the effect of her words by any murmurs or repinings of her own. She only once said:

“If you could but have stayed in Scotland, Hugh, lad; for your mother is growing old.”

“Who knows but it may be so arranged?” said Hugh thoughtfully. “There is a branch of our house in L—. It might be managed. But, whether or not, I have a year, perhaps two, before me yet.”

But it came to pass, all the same, that before the month of May was out they were all settled at Glen Elder. Though “that weary spendthrift,” Maxwell of Pentlands, as Mrs Stirling called him, could not break the entail on the estate of Pentlands, as for the sake of his many debts and his sinful pleasures he madly tried to do, he could dispose of the outlying farm of Glen Elder; and Hugh Blair became the purchaser of the farm and of a broad adjoining field, called the Nether Park. So he owned the land that his fathers had only leased; or, rather, his mother owned it, for it was purchased in her name, and was hers to have and to hold, or to dispose of as she pleased. His mother’s comfort, Hugh said, and the welfare of his young cousins, must not be left to the risks and chances of business. They must be put beyond dependence on his uncertain life or possible failure, or he could not be quite at rest with regard to them when he should be far away.

Glen Elder had not suffered in the hands of English Smith. As a faithful servant of the owner, he had held it on favourable terms, and had hoped to hold it long. So he had done well by the land, as all the neighbours declared; though at first they had watched his new-fangled plans with jealous eyes. It was “in good heart” when it changed hands, and was looking its very best on the bright May day when they went home to it. It was a happy day to them all, though it was a sad one, too, for Hugh and his mother. But the sadness passed away in the cheerful bustle of welcome from old friends; and it was not long before they settled down into a quiet and pleasant routine.

The coming home, and the new life opening before her, seemed for a long time strange and unreal to Lilias. She used to wake in the morning with the burden of her cottage-cares upon her, till the sight of her pleasant room, and the sunshine coming in through the clustering roses, chased her anxious thoughts away. The sense of repose that gradually grew upon her in her new home was very grateful to her; but she did not enter eagerly into the new interests and pleasures, as her brother did. Indeed, she could do very little but be still and enjoy the rest and quiet; for, when all necessity for exertion was over, that came upon her which must have come soon at any rate: her strength quite gave way, and, for some time, anxiety on her account sobered the growing happiness of the rest.

Even her aunt did not realise till then how much beyond her strength had been the child’s exertions during the winter and spring. Not that she would acknowledge herself to be ill. She was only tired, and would be herself again in a little while. But months passed before that time came. For many a day she lay on the sofa in the long, low parlour of Glen Elder, only wishing to be left in peace, smiling now and then into the anxious faces of her aunt and Archie, saying “it was so nice to be quiet and to have nothing to do.”

But this passed away. In a little while she was beguiled into the sunny garden, and before the harvest-holidays set Archie at liberty she was quite ready and able for a renewal of their rambles among the hills again.

As for Mrs Blair, the return of her son, and the coming home to Glen Elder, did not quite renew her youth; but when the burden that had bowed her down for so many years was taken away, the change in her was pleasant to see. For a long time she rejoiced with trembling over her returned wanderer; but as day after day passed, each leaving her more assured that it was not her wayward lad that had returned to her, but a true penitent and firm believer in Jesus, a deeper peace settled down upon her long-tried spirit, and “I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He hath set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And He hath put a new song in my mouth,” became a part of her daily thanksgiving.

As for him, if it had been the one desire of his life to atone for the sorrow he had caused her in his youth, he could not have done otherwise than he did. He made her comfort his first care. Her slightest intimation was law to him. Silently and unobtrusively, but constantly, did he manifest a grave and respectful tenderness towards her, till she, as well as others, could not but wonder, remembering the lad who would let nothing come between him and the gratification of his own foolish desires.

“You dinna mind your cousin Hugh, Lilias, my dear?” said Mrs Stirling to her one day. “I mind him well—the awfulest laddie for liking his own way that ever was heard tell of! You see, being the only one left to her, his mother thought of him first always, till he could hardly do otherwise than think first of himself; and a sore heart he gave her many a time. There’s a wonderful difference now. It must just be that,” added she, meditatively. “‘A new heart will I give you, and a right spirit will I put within you.’ Lilias, my dear, he’s a changed man.”

A bright colour flashed into Lilias’s face, and tears started in her eyes.

“I am sure of it! We may be poor and sick and sorrowful again, but the worst of my aunt’s troubles can never come back to her more.”

He was very kind to his young cousins, partly because he wished to repay the love and devotion which had brightened so many of his mother’s dark days, but chiefly because he soon loved them dearly for their own sakes. Lilias he always treated with a respect and deference which, but for the gentle dignity with which his kindness was received by her, might have seemed a little out of place offered to one still such a child.

With Archie he was different. The gravity and reserve which seemed to have become habitual to Hugh Blair in his intercourse with others never showed itself to him. The frank, open nature of the lad seemed to act as a charm upon him. The perfect simplicity of his character, the earnestness with which he strove first of all to do right, filled his cousin with wonder, and oftentimes awoke within him bitter regret at the remembrance of what his own youth had been; and a living lesson did the unconscious lad become to him many a time.

No one rejoiced more heartily than did Mrs Stirling at the coming home of Hugh Blair and the consequent change of circumstances to his mother and his little cousins; but her joy was expressed in her own fashion. One might have supposed that, in her opinion, some great calamity had befallen them, so dismal were her prophecies concerning them.

“It’s true you have borne adversity well, and that is in a measure a preparation for the well-bearing of prosperity. But there’s no telling. The heart is deceitful, and it is no easy to carry a full cup. You’ll need grace, Lilias, my dear. And you’ll doubtless get it if you seek it in a right spirit.” But, judging from Mrs Stirling’s melancholy tones and shakings of the head, it was plain to see that she expected there would be failure somewhere.

With keen eyes she watched for some symptoms of the spoiling process in Lilias, and was slow to believe that she was not going to be disappointed in her, as she had been in so many others. But time went on, and Lilias passed unscathed through what, in Nancy’s estimation, was the severest of all ordeals. She was sent to a school “to learn accomplishments,” and came home again, after two years, “not a bit set up.” So Mrs Stirling came to feel at last that she might have faith in the stability of her young favourite.

“She’s just the very same Lilias Elder that used to teach the bairns and go wandering over the hills with her brother; only she’s blither and bonnier. She’s Miss Elder of the Glen now, as I heard young Mr Graham calling her to his friend; but she’s no’ to call changed for all that.”

And Mrs Stirling was right. Lilias was not changed. Prosperity did no unkind office for her. Those happy days developed in her no germ of selfishness. Still her first thought was for others, the first desire of her heart still was to know what was right, and to obtain grace and strength to do it. In some respects she might be changed, but in this she was the very same.

She grew taller and wore a brighter bloom on her cheeks, and she gradually outgrew the look that was older than her years; but she never lost the gentle gravity that had made her seem so different from the other children in the eyes of those who knew her in her time of many cares.

Nancy had not the same confidence in Archie. Not that she could find much fault with him; but he had never been so great a favourite with her as his sister, and his boyish indifference to her praise or blame did not, in her opinion, accord with the possession of much sense or discretion.

“And, Miss Lilias, my dear, it’s no’ good for a laddie like him to be made so much of,” said she. “The most of the lads that I have seen put first and cared for most have, in one way or another, turned out a disappointment. Either they turned wilful, and went their own way to no good; or they turned soft, and were a vexation. And it would be a grievous thing indeed if the staff on which you lean should be made a rod to correct you, my dear.”

But Lilias feared no disappointment in her brother.

“‘The law of the Lord is in his heart, none of his steps shall slide,’” she answered softly to Mrs Stirling; and even she confessed that surely he needed no other safeguard.

A great deal might be told of the happy days that followed at Glen Elder. Hugh Blair never went back to India again. He married—much to his mother’s joy—one whom he had loved, and who had loved him, in the old time, before evil counsels had beguiled him from his duty and driven him from his home,—one who had never forgotten him during all those sorrowful days of waiting. Their home was at a distance; but they were often at Glen Elder, and Mrs Blair’s declining days were overshadowed by no doubt as to the well-doing or the well-being of her son.

Archie went first to the high school, and then to college. The master was loth to part from his favourite pupil; but David Graham was going. It would be well, the master said, for Davie to get through the first year of the temptations while his brother John was there “to keep an eye on him;” and Davie’s best friends and warmest admirers could not but agree, and, though not even the doubting Nancy was afraid for Archie as his master was afraid for his more thoughtless friend, it was yet thought best that the friends should go together. Archie had some troubles in his school and college life, as who has not? but he had many pleasures. He gained honour to himself as a scholar, and, what was better, he was ever known as one who feared God and who sought before all things His honour.

Lilias passed her school-days with her friend Anne Graham, in the house of the kind Dr Gordon. It need not be said that they were happy, and that they greatly improved under the gentle and judicious guidance of Mrs Gordon, and that Lilias learnt to love her dearly.

And when their school-days were over, there followed a useful and happy life at home. The girls kept up their old friendship begun that day in the kirk-yard, with fewer ups and downs than generally characterise the friendships of girls of their age. Another than Lilias might have fancied Anne’s tone to be a little peremptory sometimes; but, if Miss Graham thought herself wiser than her friend in some things, she as fully believed in her friend’s superior goodness; and not one of all the little flock that Lilias used to rule and teach in the cottage by the common, long ago, deferred more to her than, in her heart, did Anne.

So a constant and pleasant intercourse was kept up between them, and Lilias was as much at home in the manse as in the Glen. They still pursued what Davie derisively called “their studies.” That is, they read history and other books together, some of them grave and useful books, and some of them not quite so useful, but nice books for all that. Lilias delighted in poetry, and in the limited number of works of imagination permitted within the precincts of the manse. Anne liked them too; but, believing it to be a weakness, she said less about her enjoyment of them. Indeed, it was her wont to check the raptures of Lilias and her little sister Jessie over some of their favourites, and to rebuke the murmurs of the latter over books that were “good, but not bonny.”

They had other pleasures, too—gardening, and rambles among the hills, and cottage-visiting. But the chief business and pleasure of Lilias was in caring for the comfort of her aunt, and in the guiding of the household affairs at Glen Elder. Matters within and without were so arranged that, while she might always be busy, she was never burdened with care; and so the quiet days passed on, each bringing such sweet content as does not often fall to the lot of any household for a long time together.

But, though Lilias took pleasure in her friends and her home, her books and her household occupations, her best and highest happiness did not rest on these. Afterwards, when changes came, bringing anxious nights and sorrowful days, when the shadow of death hung over the household, and the untoward events of life seemed to threaten separation from friends who were none the less dear because no tie of blood united them, the foundation of her peace was unshaken. “For they that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, that cannot be removed.”

Here for the present our story must close.

They went home to Glen Elder in May. Three years passed, and May came again, and Glen Elder and Kirklands, and all the hills and dales between, were looking their loveliest in their changing robes of brown and purple and green. The air was sweet with the scent of hawthorn-blossoms, and vocal with the song of birds and the hum of bees. There was not a fleck of cloud on all the sky, nor of mist on all the hills. The day was perfect, warm, bright, and still; such a day as does not come many times in all the Scottish year.

Nancy Stirling stood at her cottage-door, looking out over the green slope, and the burn running full to the fields beyond, and the faraway hills; and, as she looked, she sighed, and quite forgot the water-bucket in her hand, and that she was on her way to the burn for water to make her afternoon cup of tea. We speak of spring as a joyful season; we say, “the glad spring,” and “the merry, merry May;” and it is a glad season to the birds and the bees, the lambs and the little children, and to grown people, too, who have nothing very sad to remember. But the coming back of so many fair things as the spring brings reminds many a one of fair things which can never come again; and hearts more contented than Mrs Stirling’s was, sometimes sigh in the light of such a day.

“It’s a bonny day,” said she to herself, “a seasonable day for the country; and we should be thankful.” But she sighed again as she said it; and, for no reason that she could give, her thoughts wandered away to a row of graves in the kirk-yard, and farther away still, to a home and a time in which she saw herself a little child, so blithe, so full of happy life, that, as it all came back, she could not but wonder how she ever should have changed to the troubled, dissatisfied woman that she knew herself to be.

“Oh, well! It couldna but be so, in a world like this. Such changes ay have been, and ay must be,” said she, trying to comfort herself with the “old philosophy.” But she did not quite succeed. For the passing years had changed her, and it came into her mind, as it had often come of late, that she might perhaps have made a better use of all that life had brought her. But it was not a pleasant thought to pursue; and she gave a little start of relief and pleasure as she caught sight of two figures coming slowly up the brae.

“It’s Lilias Elder and Archie. She’ll have nothing left to wish for now that she has him home again. Eh! but she’s a bonnie lassie, and a good! And Archie, too, is a well-grown lad, and not so set up as he might be, considering.”

It was Lilias and her brother. Archie was at home, after his first session at the college; and Nancy was right; Lilias had little left to wish for.

“Well, bairns,” she said, after the first greetings were over, “will you come in, or will you sit down here at the door? It’s such a bonny day. So you’re home again, Archie, lad, and glad to be, I hope?”

“Very glad,” said Archie. “I never was so glad before.”

“You said that last time,” said Lilias, laughing.

“Well, maybe I did. But it’s true all the same. I’m more glad every time.”

“And you didna come home before it was time,” said Nancy. “You’re thinner and paler than your aunt likes to see you, I’m thinking.”

“I’m perfectly well, I assure you,” said Archie.

“He will have a rest and the fresh country air again,” said Lilias. “He has been very close at his books.”

“Well, it may be that,” said Mrs Stirling. “And so you’re glad to be home again? You havena been letting that daft laddie, Davie Graham, lead you into any mischief that you would be afraid to tell your sister about, I hope?”

Archie laughed, and shook his head. Lilias laughed a little, too, as she said—

“Oh no, indeed. Even John says they have done wonderfully well: and after that you need have no fear.”

“It’s not unlikely that two or three things might happen in such a place, and John Graham be none the wiser. And it’s not likely that he’ll say any ill of your brother in your hearing,” said Nancy drily. “Not that I’m misdoubting you, Archie, man; and may you be kept safe, for your sister’s sake!”

“For a better reason than that, I hope, Mrs Stirling,” said Lilias gravely.

“Well, so be it; though his sister is a good enough reason for him, I hope. But where have you been? To see Bell Ray? How is she to-day, poor body?”

“We have not been there,” said Lilias. “We meant to go when we came from home; but we stayed so long down yonder that we had no time. I am going some day soon.”

“And where’s ‘down yonder,’ if I may ask?” demanded Mrs Stirling.

“At the moor cottage,” said Lilias. “We came over the hills to see it again, just to mind us of old times.”

“And we stayed so long, speaking about these old times, that we are likely to be late home,” said Archie; “and they are all coming up from the manse, to have tea in the Glen. We must make haste home, Lily.”

“Yes; and we stayed a while at the old seat under the rowan-tree. We could only just reach it, the burn is so full. And look at all the flowers I found in the cottage-garden—heart’s-ease, and daisies, and sweet-brier, and thyme. It seemed a pity to leave them, with nobody to see them. Give me something to put them in, Mrs Stirling, and I’ll leave some of them for you. We will have time enough for that, Archie, never fear.”

She sat down on the door-step, and laid the flowers on her lap.

“And wherefore should you be caring to mind yourselves of the old times, I wonder?” said Nancy, as she sat down beside her, holding the jug for the flowers in her hand. “Some of those days were sad enough, I’m sure. Maybe it’s to make you humble?”

“Yes, and thankful,” said Lilias softly.

“And those days were very pleasant, too, in one way,” said Archie.

“Ay, to you, lad. But some of them brought small pleasure to your sister, I’m thinking,” said Nancy sharply. “You’re a wise lad, but you dinna ken everything that came in those old times, as you call them.”

“But some of the things that I like best to remember happened on some of the very worst of those days,” said Lilias. “I should never have known half your goodness, for one thing. Do you mind that last day that I came to you? Oh, how weary I was that day!”

“And much good I did you,” said Nancy.

“Indeed you did, more than I could tell you then, more than I can tell you now,” said Lilias, giving the last touch to the flowers as she rose. “I like to think of those days. We are all the happier now for the troubles of the old times.”

“And truly I think you’ll ay be but the happier for whatever time may bring you,” said Nancy musingly, as she watched them hastening over the hill together. “‘To mind us of the old times,’” quoth she. “There are few folk but would be glad to forget, and to make others forget, ‘the hole of the pit.’ And look at these flowers, now! Who but Lilias Elder would think of a poor body like me caring for what is good neither to eat nor to drink? She’s like no one else. And as for her brother, he’s not so set up as folk might expect. May they be kept safe from the world’s taint and stain! I suppose the Lord can do it. I’m sure He can. ‘The law of the Lord is in his heart, none of his steps shall slide.’ She said it of her brother once; and if it is true of him it’s true of her. It is that that makes the difference. They have no cause to be afraid, even though ‘the earth be removed.’ Eh! but it is a grand thing to have the Lord on our side! Nothing can go far wrong with us then.”