Yet better did he apprehend her promises of vast rewards, if he would do exactly as she wished. There was an air about her which enabled him to fancy her some queen or other powerful personage; and as it happened to suit him to keep the secret till the last moment, he promised, for himself and his comrade, to be discreet, and obey orders.
This settled, the lady turned homewards, with a basket full of eggs, and fish, and young birds, and news for the widow that her son was safe, and not far off, and about to come home to try his hand at building a house.
Chapter Eight.
The Waiting of the Wise.
The house proceeded well. Macdonald had no express orders about it; but he had express orders to keep Lady Carse on the island, and, if possible, in a quiet and orderly state of manners. When he saw how completely engrossed she was in the building of this dwelling, and what a close friendship she appeared to have formed with Annie Fleming, he believed that she was a woman of a giddy mind and strong self-will, who might be managed by humouring. If he could assist her in providing herself with a succession of new objects, he hoped that she might be kept from mischief and misery, as a child is by a change of toys. He would try this method, and trust to his chief’s repaying him any expenses incurred for the strange lady’s sake. So he granted the use of his ponies and his people,—now a man or two,—and now their wives, to bring stones and earth and turf, and to twist heather bands. Once or twice he came himself, and lent a strong hand to raise a corner-stone, and help to lay the hearthstone. The house consisted of two rooms, divided by a passage. If Lady Carse had chosen to admit the idea of remaining after the arrival of the Ruthvens, she would have added a third room; but she had resolved that she would leave the island in the vessel which brought them, or in the next that their arrival would bring: and she would not dwell for an instant on any doubt of accomplishing her purpose.
So the thick walls rose, and the low roof was on, and the thatch well bound down, and secured moreover with heavy stones, before the autumn storms arrived. And before the hard rains came down, all Macdonald’s ponies were one evening seen approaching in a string, laden with peat—a present to the lady. In the course of the day there was stacked, at the end of her cottage, enough to last for some months. When the widow came out to see it and wish her joy—for a good stack of well dried peat was the richest of all possessions in that region—the lady smiled as cheerfully as Annie; not at the peat, however, but at the thought that she should see little or none of it burn. She intended to dispose of her winter evenings far otherwise.
As for the widow, she was thankful now that she had never thought her situation dreary. If, in her former solitude, when her boy was absent, she had murmured at that solitude, her present feelings would have been a rebuke to her. She was not happy now; so far from it, that her former life appeared, in comparison with it, as happy as she could desire. Perhaps it had been too peaceful, she thought, and she might need some exercise of patience. It was a great advantage, certainly, for both herself and Rollo to hear the thing; the lady could tell of ways of living in other places, and to learn such a variety of knowledge from a person so much better informed than themselves. But then this knowledge appeared to be all so unsanctified! It did not make the poor lady herself strong in heart and peaceful in spirit. It was wonderful, and very stirring to the mind, to learn how wise people were who lived in cities and what great ability was required to conduct the affairs of life where men were gathered together in numbers; but then these wonders did not seem to impress those who lived in the midst of them. There was no sign that they were watching and praising God’s hand working among the faculties of men, as more retired people do in much meaner things—in the warmth which the eider-duck gives to her eggs by wrapping them in down from her own breast, and the punctuality with which the herring shoals pass by in May and October, making the sea glitter with life and light as they go. She feared that when people lived out of sight of green pastures and still waters—and she looked at the moment upon the down on which the goats were browsing, and the fresh water pool, where the dragon fly hovered for a few hot days in summer—when men lived out of sight of green pastures and still waters, she feared that they became perplexed in a sort of Babel, where the call of the shepherd was too gentle to be heard. At least, it appeared thus from the effect upon Rollo of the lady’s conversation. She had always feared for him the effect of seeing the world, as she remembered the world—of his seeing it before he had better learned to see God everywhere, and to be humble accordingly—and the conversation he now heard was to him much like being on the mainland, and even in a town. It had not made him more humble, or more kind, or more helpful; except, indeed, to the lady—there was nothing he would not do to help her.
And here Annie sighed and smiled at once, as the thought struck her that while she was mourning over other people’s corruption she was herself not untouched. She detected herself admitting some dislike to the lady because she so occupied Rollo that he had left off supplying his mother with fishes’ livers and seal-fat for oil. The best season had passed:—she had spoken to him several times not to lose the six-weeks-old seals; but he had not attended to it; and now her stock of oil was very low; and the long winter nights were before her. She must speak to Macdonald to procure her some oil. But very strictly must she speak to herself about this new trouble of discontent. Did she not know that He who appointed her dwelling-place on that height, and who marked her for her life’s task by that touch on her heart-strings the night she saw her husband drown, would supply the means? If her light was to be set on the hill for men to see from the tossing billows and be saved, it would be taken care of that, as of old, the widow’s cruise of oil did not fail. What she had to look to was that the lamp of her soul did not grow dim and go out. How lately was she thanking God for the new opportunities afforded her by the arrival of this stranger! and now she was shrinking from these very opportunities, and finding fault with everybody before herself!