"Wad he chait?"
"Ay. Na. He wadna chait muckle. I wadna turn my back till him, though, ohn keekit ower my shouther to haud him sicker. He wadna min' doin' ill that gude micht come."
"Ay, ay; I ken him.�-And the ill wad be whatever hurtit anither man, and the gude whatever furthered himsel?" said Mr Cupples as he dipped the last morsel of his third potato in the salt which he held in the palm of his left hand.
"Ye hae said it, Mr Cupples."
And therewith, Mr Cupples bade James good-night, and went to the hoose.
There he heard the happy news that Alec insisted on seeing him. Against her will, Mrs Forbes had given in, as the better alternative to vexing him. The result of the interview was, that Cupples sat up with him that night, and Mrs Forbes and Annie both slept. In the morning he found a bed ready for him, to which he reluctantly betook himself and slept for a couple of hours. The end of it was, that he did not go back to Mr Bruce's except to pay his bill. Nor did he leave Howglen for many weeks.
At length, one lovely morning, when the green corn lay soaking in the yellow sunlight, and the sky rose above the earth deep and pure and tender like the thought of God about it, Alec became suddenly aware that life was good, and the world beautiful. He tried to raise himself, but failed. Cupples was by his side in a moment. Alec held out his hand with his old smile so long disused. Cupples propped him up with pillows, and opened the window that the warm waves of the air might break into the cave where he had lain so long deaf to its noises and insensible to its influences. The tide flowed into his chamber like Pactolus, all golden with sunbeams. He lay with his hands before him and his eyes closed, looking so happy that Cupples gazed with reverent delight, for he thought he was praying. But he was only blessed. So easily can God make a man happy! The past had dropped from him like a wild but weary and sordid dream. He was reborn, a new child, in a new bright world, with a glowing summer to revel in. One of God's lyric prophets, the larks, was within earshot, pouring down a vocal summer of jubilant melody. The lark thought nobody was listening but his wife; but God heard in heaven, and the young prodigal heard on the earth. He would be a good child henceforth, for one bunch of sunrays was enough to be happy upon. His mother entered. She saw the beauty upon her boy's worn countenance; she saw the noble watching love on that of his friend; her own filled with light, and she stood transfixed and silent. Annie entered, gazed for a moment, fled to her own room, and burst into adoring tears.�-For she had seen the face of God, and that face was Love�-love like the human, only deeper, deeper�-tenderer, lovelier, stronger. She could not recall what she had seen, or how she had known it; but the conviction remained that she had seen his face, and that it was infinitely beautiful.
"He has been wi' me a' the time, my God! He gied me my father, and sent Broonie to tak' care o' me, and Dooie, and Thomas Crann, and Mrs Forbes, and Alec. And he sent the cat whan I gaed till him aboot the rottans. An' he's been wi' me I kenna hoo lang, and he's wi' me noo. And I hae seen his face, and I'll see his face again. And I'll try sair to be a gude bairn. Eh me! It's jist wonnerfu! And God's jist….naething but God himsel'."
CHAPTER LXXX.
Although Mr Cupples had been educated for the Church, and was indeed at this present time a licentiate, he had given up all thought of pursuing what had been his mother's ambition rather than his own choice. But his thoughts had not ceased to run in some of the old grooves, although a certain scepticism would sometimes set him examining those grooves to find out whether they had been made by the wheels of the gospel-chariot, or by those of Juggernaut in the disguise of a Hebrew high priest, drawn by a shouting Christian people. Indeed, as soon as he ceased to go to church, which was soon after ceasing to regard the priesthood as his future profession, he began to look at many things from points of view not exclusively ecclesiastical. So that, although he did go to church at Glamerton for several Sundays, the day arriving when he could not face it again, he did not scruple to set off for the hills. Coming home with a great grand purple foxglove in his hand, he met some of the missionars returning from their chapel, and amongst the rest Robert Bruce, who stopped and spoke.