There was a good deal more said about Mr Fleming’s affairs, and about other affairs, though Mr Maxwell stood all the time with his hat in his hand. But enough has been told to give an idea of the way in which these young people talked to each other. Mr Maxwell never went from the house without congratulating himself on the friendship of Miss Holt. How much good she always did him! What a blessing it was for him that there was one person in his congregation to whom he might speak unreservedly, and who had sense and judgment to see and say just what was best for him to do or to refrain from doing.
This was putting it rather strongly. Elizabeth was far from assuming such a position in relation to the minister. But she had sense and judgment, and frankness and simplicity of manner, and no doubt she found it pleasant to be listened to, and deferred to, as Mr Maxwell was in the habit of doing. And she knew she could help him, and that she had helped him, many a time. He was inexperienced, to say nothing more, and she gave him many a hint with regard to some of the doubtful measures and crooked natures in Gershom society, which prevented some stumbles, and guided him safely past some difficult places on his first entrance into it. But she had done more and better than that for him though she herself hardly knew it.
Squire Holt’s house was a pleasant house to visit, and during the first homesick and miserable days of his stay in Gershom, when he would gladly have turned his back on his vocation and his duties, the bright and cheerful welcome there that Elizabeth gave him on that first night when Clifton took him home with him, and ever after that night, was like a strengthening cordial to one who needed it surely. Miss Elizabeth was several years younger than he, but she felt a great deal older and wiser in some respects than the student whose experience of life had been so limited and so different, and so it came to pass that, at the very first, she had fallen into the way of advising him, and even of expostulating with him on small occasions, and he had not resented it, but had been grateful for it, and at last rather liked it. He had brightened under her influence, and now the thought of her was associated with all the agreeable and hopeful circumstances of his new life and work.
He said to himself often, and he wrote to his friend Miss Martha Langden, that the friendship of Miss Elizabeth Holt was one of his best helps in the faithful performance of his pastoral duties, and that excellent and venerable lady at once assigned to Mr Maxwell’s friend the same place in his regard, and in his parish generally, that she herself had occupied in the regard of several successive pastors, and in her native parish for forty years at least. It never occurred to Miss Langden, and it certainly never occurred to Mr Maxwell, that this friendship could be in any danger of interfering with the wishes and plans of former years. That it might affect in any way his future relations with the pretty and amiable young person whom Miss Langden was educating to be his wife, and the model for all the ministers’ wives of the generation, never came into the mind of either. Miss Elizabeth was a true and useful friend, and the satisfaction that this afforded him was not to his consciousness incompatible with a happy and just appreciation of his good fortune in having a claim on the affection of Miss Langden’s niece.
Elizabeth did not know at this time of the existence of Miss Langden’s niece. If she had known it, it is not at all likely that she would have allowed such knowledge to interfere with the friendly relations into which she had fallen with the minister. She would have liked him none the less had she known of his tacit engagement to that young lady, and would have manifested her friendliness none the less, but rather the more because of it. And, on the whole, it was a pity that she did not know it.
Chapter Nine.
Master and Pupils.
At Ythan Brae the winter opened sadly. The grandfather had an illness which kept both Davie and Katie at home from the school for a while; and what was worse, when he grew better he would fain have kept them at home still. This would have been a serious matter to Davie, and he vexed Katie and his grandmother by suggesting possible and painful consequences all round should his grandfather persist. For the lad had been seized with a great hunger for knowledge. He desired it partly for its own sake, but partly also because he had heard many a time and implicitly believed that “knowledge is power,” which is true in a certain sense, but not in the sense or to the extent that it seemed true to Davie. His grandfather was afraid of the boy’s eager craving, and of what might come of it, and would far rather have seen him content, as his father had been, to plod through the winter, busy with the occupations which the season brought, than so eager to get away to Mr Burnet and his books. The grandfather had his sorrowful reasons for wishing to keep the lad in the quiet and safe paths which his father had trod. The grandmother knew how it was with him, and Katie and Davie guessed something of what his reasons might be. “And, bairns,” said their grandmother, “ye are no to doubt that your grandfather is right, though he doesna see as ye do in this matter. For knowledge is whiles a snare and a curse; and a true heart, and an honest life, and a will to do your duty in the place in which your Maker has putten you are better than a’ the uncanny wisdom that men gather from books, whether you believe it or not, Davie, my man. I canna say that I have any special fear for you myself, but one can never ken. And your grandfather, he canna forget; it’s no’ his nature. There was once one like you, Davie lad, that lost himself through ill-doing folk, and—I canna speak about it—and what must it be to him?”