Then, apparently unconscious of what he did, he went wandering from the room, down to the kitchen, and out to the barn on his bare feet, closing the door of the house behind him. In the barn he threw himself, face downward, on a heap of loose straw, and there lay motionless. His wife wept alone in her bed, and hardly missed him: it required of her no reflection to understand whither he had gone, or what he was doing. He was crying, like King Lear from the bitterness of an outraged father’s heart, to the Father of fathers:
“God, ye’re a father yersel,” he groaned; “and sae ye ken hoo it’s rivin at my hert!—Na, Lord, ye dinna ken; for ye never had a doobt aboot your son!—Na, I’m no blamin Jeemie, Lord; I’m no cryin oot upo him; for ye ken weel hoo little I ken aboot him: he never opened the buik o’ his hert to me! Oh God, grant that he hae naething to hide; but gien he has, Lord, pluck it oot o’ ’im, and him oot o’ the glaur! latna him stick there. I kenna hoo to shape my petition, for I’m a’ i’ the dark; but deliver him some gait, Lord, I pray thee, for his mither’s sake!—ye ken what she is!—I dinna coont for onything, but ye ken her!—Lord, deliver the hert o’ her frae the awfu’est o’ a’ her fears.—Lord, a hypocreet! a Judas-man!”
More of what he said, I cannot tell; somehow this much has reached my ears. He remained there upon the straw while hour after hour passed, pleading with the great Father for his son; his soul now lost in dull fatigue, now uttering itself in groans for lack of words, until at length the dawn looked in on the night-weary earth, and into the two sorrow-laden hearts, bringing with it a comfort they did not seek to understand.
CHAPTER XVI
But it brought no solace to the mind of the weak, hard-hearted, and guilty son. He had succeeded once more in temporarily soothing his conscience with some narcotic of false comfort, and now slept the sleep of the houseless, whose covering was narrower than he could wrap himself in. Ah, those nights! Alas for the sleepless human soul out in the eternal cold! But so heartless was James, that, if his mother had come to him in the morning with her tear-dimmed eyes, he would never have asked himself what could ail her; would never even have seen that she was unhappy; least of all would have suspected himself the cause of her red eyes and aching head, or that the best thing in him was that mental uneasiness of which he was constantly aware. Thank God, there was no way round the purifying fire! he could not escape it; he must pass through it!
CHAPTER XVII
Little knows the world what a power among men is the man who simply and really believes in him who is Lord of the world to save men from their sins! He may be neither wise nor prudent; he may be narrow and dim-sighted even in the things he loves best; they may promise him much, and yield him but a poor fragment of the joy that might be and ought to be his; he may present them to others clothed in no attractive hues, or in any word of power; and yet, if he has but that love to his neighbour which is rooted in, and springs from love to his God, he is always a redeeming, reconciling influence among his fellows. The Robertsons were genial of heart, loving and tender toward man or woman in need of them; their door was always on the latch for such to enter. If the parson insisted on the wrath of God against sin, he did not fail to give assurance of His tenderness toward such as had fallen. Together the godly pair at length persuaded Isobel of the eager forgiveness of the Son of Man. They assured her that he could not drive from him the very worst of sinners, but loved—nothing less than tenderly loved any one who, having sinned, now turned her face to the Father. She would doubtless, they said, have to see her trespass in the eyes of unforgiving women, but the Lord would lift her high, and welcome her to the home of the glad-hearted.
But poor Isy, who regarded her fault as both against God and the man who had misled her, and was sick at the thought of being such as she judged herself, insisted that nothing God himself could do, could ever restore her, for nothing could ever make it that she had not fallen: such a contradiction, such an impossibility alone could make her clean! God might be ready to forgive her, but He could not love her! Jesus might have made satisfaction for her sin, but how could that make any difference in or to her? She was troubled that Jesus should have so suffered, but that could not give her back her purity, or the peace of mind she once possessed! That was gone for ever! The life before her took the appearance of an unchanging gloom, a desert region whence the gladness had withered, and whence came no purifying wind to blow from her the odours of the grave by which she seemed haunted! Never to all eternity could she be innocent again! Life had no interest for her! She was, and must remain just what she was; for, alas, she could not cease to be!
Such thoughts had at one period ravaged her life, but they had for some time been growing duller and deader: now once more revived by goodness and sympathy, they had resumed their gnawing and scorching, and she had grown yet more hateful to herself. Even the two who befriended and comforted her, could never, she thought, cease to regard her as what they knew she was! But, strange to say, with this revival of her suffering, came also a requickening of her long dormant imagination, favoured and cherished, doubtless, by the peace and love that surrounded her. First her dreams, then her broodings began to be haunted with sweet embodiments. As if the agonized question of the guilty Claudius were answered to her, to assure her that there was “rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash her white as snow,” she sometimes would wake from a dream where she stood in blessed nakedness with a deluge of cool, comforting rain pouring upon her from the sweetness of those heavens—and fall asleep again to dream of a soft strong west wind chasing from her the offensive emanations of the tomb, that seemed to have long persecuted her nostrils as did the blood of Duncan those of the wretched Lady Macbeth. And every night to her sinful bosom came back the soft innocent hands of the child she had lost—when ever and again her dream would change, and she would be Hagar, casting her child away, and fleeing from the sight of his death. More than once she dreamed that an angel came to her, and went out to look for her boy—only to return and lay him in her arms grievously mangled by some horrid beast.
When the first few days of her sojourn with the good Samaritans were over, and she had gathered strength enough to feel that she ought no longer to be burdensome to them, but look for work, they positively refused to let her leave them before her spirit also had regained some vital tone, and she was able to “live a little”; and to that end they endeavoured to revive in her the hope of finding her lost child: setting inquiry on foot in every direction, they promised to let her know the moment when her presence should begin to cause them inconvenience.