“Heaven bless ye for that, lassie!” cried McCray, with the tears of pleasure starting into his eyes, as, catching her in his arms, he kissed her heartily. “Ye’ll send me away a happier man than I’ve been for months, seeing that douce-tongued carl hanging round ye. Go to your bed, lassie—go to your bed, and sleep soundly; and I should like to see the face of either of them come within reach of my spade!”
A minute later, and the gardener was listening to the cautious fastening of the door; and then, boldly stepping out on to the lawn, he looked around. But there was, as he had felt, no danger at hand, and soon after he was seated in his cottage, waiting patiently for the dawn, not trusting himself to sleep; and long before another gardener appeared, the last trace of disturbed flower-stand and bed had been removed, so that not another soul at Merland Castle knew of John Gurdon’s treachery.
“But I’ll e’en keep my eyes wide,” said Alexander to himself; “for it strikes me that the rascal may come again.”
“Maybe I ought to tell the laird, and put him on his guard, for the bit of siller in the butler’s pantry is a sair temptation to a rogue,” muttered McCray, as he pondered about the matter; “but I dinna see how I’m going to tell a bit without telling the whole, and getting the lassie into grief. So I’ll just say nae word to a soul, but take a leuke round of a neet, and have a peep at the lassie’s window as weel, lest the de’il should hang about to try and tempt the puir daughter of Eve to fresh sin. For though she means reet now, the lassie’s weak; and though she don’t know’t, there may yet be a bit of the auld weed in her heart not yet rooted oot; but wait a wee, and I’ll have that sweet heart of hers that clean and reet, that it shall blossom again beautifully, and I’d like to see the weed then as would get in.”
Sir Murray’s Thoughts.
It was now an acknowledged fact that there could be no further intimacy between the residents at Castle and Hall. The Nortons led a more than ever secluded life, Mrs Norton finding it necessary to retrench in every possible way to meet their altered circumstances, for the iron company’s affairs were worse and worse, and people loudly blamed Norton for his folly. “Why did he not become bankrupt,” they said, “as other people would?” But Norton declined all such relief, his brow grew wrinkled and his hair slightly grizzled at the sides, but he was determined to pay to the last penny he could muster, and wait for the change that he trusted would come, for his faith was perfect in his enterprise.
Mrs Norton never complained, but always welcomed him with a smile when he returned from his long absences. Cruel doubts would come at times, brought up, perhaps, by some silly village tattle, but she cast them out with a shudder, as if they were something too loathsome to be harboured even for an instant; and, after such battles with herself, she would greet her husband with increased tenderness, as she strove to chase away the settled melancholy which oppressed him.
Twice only during many months had he encountered Sir Murray Gernon, to meet with fierce, scowling looks of hatred; but no word was spoken, and Philip Norton never knew the curses that were showered upon his head. It was well for him, too, that he did not know that many a night, Marion Gernon, brokenhearted and despairing, knelt by her solitary pillow to say, almost in the words of the old prophet, “It is enough,” and to pray that she might pass away.
It was only at times, though, that such despairing thoughts oppressed her; at others she would bewail her wickedness, and pray for strength, as she looked upon the tiny slumbering face of her infant, and then bathed it with tears.