“I am going to see Malcolm,” she said, with a little sigh. “That is, I am going to visit Lady Lossie at her place in Scotland— your own old home, where so many must love you.—Can’t you come? I shall be travelling alone, quite alone, except my servants.”
A shadow came over the schoolmaster’s face.
“You do not think, my lady, or you would not press me. It pains me that you do not see at once it would be dishonest to go without timely notice to my pupils, and to the public too. But, beyond that quite, I never do anything of myself. I go, not where I wish, but where I seem to be called or sent. I never even wish much—except when I pray to him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. After what he wants to give me I am wishing all day long. I used to build many castles, not without a beauty of their own—that was when I had less understanding: now I leave them to God to build for me—he does it better, and they last longer. See now, this very hour, when I needed help—could I have contrived a more lovely annihilation of the monotony that threatened to invade my weary spirit, than this inroad of light in the person of my lady Clementina? Nor will he allow me to get over-wearied with vain efforts. I do not think he will keep me here long, for I find I cannot do much for these children. They are but some of his many pagans—not yet quite ready to receive Christianity, I think— not like children with some of the old seeds of the truth buried in them, that want to be turned up nearer to the light. This ministration I take to be more for my good than theirs—a little trial of faith and patience for me—a stony corner of the lovely valley of humiliation to cross. True, I might be happier where I could hear the larks, but I do not know that anywhere have I been more peaceful than in this little room, on which I see you so often cast round your eyes curiously—perhaps pitifully, my lady?”
“It is not at all a fit place for you,” said Clementina, with a touch of indignation.
“Softly, my lady—lest, without knowing it, your love should make you sin! Who set thee, I pray, for a guardian angel over my welfare? I could scarce have a lovelier—true! but where is thy brevet? No, my lady! it is a greater than thou that sets me the bounds of my habitation. Perhaps he may give me a palace one day. If I might choose, it would be the things that belong to a cottage —the whiteness and the greenness and the sweet odours of cleanliness. But the father has decreed for his children that they shall know the thing that is neither their ideal nor his. Who can imagine how in this respect things looked to our Lord when he came and found so little faith on the earth! But, perhaps, my lady, you would not pity my present condition so much, if you had seen the cottage in which I was born, and where my father and my mother loved each other, and died happier than on their wedding day. There I was happy too until their loving ambition decreed that I should be a scholar and a clergyman. Not before then did I ever know anything worthy of the name of trouble. A little cold and a little hunger at times, and not a little restlessness always was all. But then —ah then, my troubles began! Yet God, who bringeth light out of darkness, hath brought good even out of my weakness and presumption and half unconscious falsehood!—When do you go?”
“To-morrow morning—as I purpose.”
“Then God be with thee. He is with thee, only my prayer is that thou mayest know it. He is with me and I know it. He does not find this chamber too mean or dingy or unclean to let me know him near me in it.”
“Tell me one thing before I go,” said Clementina: “are we not commanded to bear each other’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ? I read it to-day.”
“Then why ask me?”
“For another question: does not that involve the command to those who have burdens that they should allow others to bear them?”