So it had been three hours of marvelous happiness. They had been content to forget all things but the joy of each other’s presence. To the last possible minute he had remained with her, and their hopeful farewell had not been dimmed by a single tear. Since that night, she had sent no anxious worrying thoughts after him. From every port at which his ship touched, he had written her long, loving letters, and now she was beginning to expect his return. Any day she might have a letter from him, dated Liverpool or Glasgow.
“Lat them talk,” she said with a little defiant laugh. “Lat their tongues tak’ their ain ill-way, I’m not feared. There’s Norman at my side, and the Domine not far off, and God aboon us all. I’ll speak to Norman anent the fishing, and if needs be, I can kipper the herring as weel as Mither did.” Then in a moment a wonderful change came over her, the angry scorn of her attitude, and the proud smile on her handsome face vanished. She clasped her hands, and with the light of unconquerable love on her face, she said with tender eagerness—“What does she do now? Oh dear God, what is Mither doing now? I canna tell. I canna tell, but it is Thy will, I’m sure o’ that.” Then the loving tears that followed this attitude washed away all traces of her scorn and anger, and she lay down with prayer on her lips, and fell sweetly asleep.
CHAPTER XII
NEIL’S RETURN HOME
They that sin, are enemies to their own life.—Tobit, xii, 10.
But Thou sparest all, for they are Thine, O Lord, Thou Lover of Souls.—Wisdom of Solomon, xi, 26.
Tomorrow is always another day, always a new day, and as long as we live, always our day. It will bring us our little freight of good or evil, and we must accept it, our salvation being that we have the power of turning the evil into good, by the manner in which we accept it. When Christine awoke in the morning, she awoke all at once. No faculty of the Inner Woman dozed or lingered, every sense of the physical woman was attent, even sight—which often delays after its sister senses are conscious—promptly lifted its curtains, and Christine knew in a moment that she was all there, every sense and faculty alert, and ready for whatever the new day brought her.
She thought first of the trouble that Jessy was likely to make. “The maist o’ the women will side wi’ Jessy,” she thought, “not because they like her, but because they dearly like a quarrel. I’ll not 307 quarrel with them. I’ll bide at hame, and if they come up here, I’ll bolt the doors on them. That’s settled. I can neither keep back, nor hurry forward Cluny, sae I’ll just put him in God’s care, and leave him there. Neil has ta’en himsel’ out o’ my kindness and knowledge, I can only ask God to gie his angel a charge concerning him. The great queston is, how am I to get my bread and tea? There’s plenty o’ potatoes in the house, and a pennyworth o’ fish will make me a meal. And I am getting a few eggs from the hens now, but there’s this and that unaccountable thing wanted every day; and I hae just two-and-sixpence half-penny left. Weel! I’ll show my empty purse to the Lord o’ heaven and earth, and I’m not doubting but that He will gie me a’ that is gude for me.”
She put down her tea cup decisively to this declaration, and then rose, tidied her house and herself, and sat down to her novel. With a smile she opened her manuscript, and looked at what she had accomplished. “You tiresome young woman,” she said to her heroine. “You’ll hae to make up your mind vera soon, now, whether ye’ll hae Sandy Gilhaize, or Roy Brock. I’ll advise you to tak’ Sandy, but I dinna think you’ll do it, for you are a parfect daffodil o’ vanity, and you think Roy Brock is mair of a gentleman than Sandy. I dinna ken what to do wi’ you!——”
Here the door was noisily opened, and Jamie rushed in, crying “Auntie, Auntie! I hae three 308 letters for you, and one o’ them came a week ago.”