Mr Fraser declined seeing him. The old man was in a pitiable condition, and indeed never lectured again.
Alec no more frequented his old dismal haunt by the seashore. The cry of the drowning girl would not have come to him as it would to the more finely nervous constitution of Mr Cupples; but the cry of a sea-gull, or the wash of the waves, or even the wind across the tops of the sand-hills, would have been enough to make him see in every crest which the wind tore white in the gloamin, the forlorn figure of the girl he loved vanishing from his eyes.
The more heartily he worked the more did the evil as well as the painful portions of his history recede into the background of his memory, growing more and more like the traces left by a bad, turbid, and sorrowful dream.
Is it true that all our experiences will one day revive in entire clearness of outline and full brilliancy of colour, passing before the horror-struck soul to the denial of time, and the assertion of ever-present eternity? If so, then God be with us, for we shall need him.
Annie Anderson's great-aunt took to her bed directly after her husband's funeral.
Finding there was much to do about the place, Annie felt no delicacy as to remaining. She worked harder than ever she had worked before, blistered her hands, and browned her fair face and neck altogether autumnally. Her aunt and she together shore (reaped) the little field of oats; got the sheaves home and made a rick of them; dug up the potatoes, and covered them in a pit with a blanket of earth; looked after the one cow and calf which gathered the grass along the road and river sides; fed the pigs and the poultry, and even went with a neighbour and his cart to the moss, to howk (dig) their winter-store of peats. But this they found too hard for them, and were forced to give up. Their neighbours, however, provided their fuel, as they had often done in part for old John Peterson.
Before the winter came there was little left to be done; and Annie saw by her aunt's looks that she wanted to get rid of her. Margaret Anderson had a chronic, consuming sense of poverty, and therefore worshipped with her whole soul the monkey Lars of saving and vigilance. Hence Annie, as soon as Alec was gone, went, with the simplicity belonging to her childlike nature, to see Mrs Forbes, and returned to Clippenstrae only to bid them good-bye.
The bodily repose and mental activity of the winter formed a strong contrast with her last experiences. But the rainy, foggy, frosty, snowy months passed away much as they had done before, fostering, amongst other hidden growths, that of Mrs Forbes' love for her semi-proteg�e, whom, like Castor and Pollux, she took half the year to heaven, and sent the other half to Tartarus. One notable event, however, of considerable importance in its results to the people of Howglen, took place this winter amongst the missionars of Glamerton.
CHAPTER LXXXV.
So entire was Thomas Crann's notion of discipline, that it could not be satisfied with the mere riddance of Robert Bruce. Jealous, therefore, of encroachment on the part of minister or deacons, and opposed by his friend James Johnstone, he communicated his design to no one; for he knew that the higher powers, anxious to avoid scandal wherever possible, would, instead of putting the hypocrite to shame as he deserved, merely send him a civil letter, requesting him to withdraw from their communion. After watching for a fit opportunity, he resolved at length to make his accusation against Robert Bruce in person at an approaching church-meeting, at which, in consequence of the expected discussion of the question of the proper frequency of the administration of the sacrament, a full attendance of members might be expected.