Then, passing over many years, when Reginald Dacre brought his bride to his old home, this faithful friend, after giving her loving welcome to the new Mrs. Dacre, went, in the confusion and bewilderment of old age, with its strange mingling of past and present, to the room where the portrait of her lost lady with the golden hair still hung; and there, the story goes on to say, "There, where years before she had held me in her arms with tears, I, weeping also, held her now in mine—quite dead!"
This is one of the most pathetic incidents in all Mrs. Ewing's works, told without the least exaggeration and with the simplicity which is one of the characteristics of her style.
"Lob Lie by the Fire" contains some of the author's brightest flashes of humour, and yet it closes with a description of Macalister's death, drawn with the tender hand with which that solemn mystery is ever touched by Mrs. Ewing, beautiful in its pathetic simplicity. Nothing in its way can be more profoundly touching than the few words which end this story:—
"After a while Macalister repeated the last word, 'Home.' And as he spoke there spread over his face a smile so tender and so full of happiness that John Broom held his breath as he watched him. As the light of sunrise creeps over the face of some rugged rock, it crept from chin to brow, and the pale blue eyes shone, tranquil, like water that reflects heaven. And when it had passed, it left them still open—but gems that had lost their ray."
"Jackanapes" is so well known, almost the best known of the author's charming stories, that we will not dwell on the pathos of that last scene, when Jackanapes, like one in the old allegory, heard the trumpets calling for him on the other side—the gallant boy who had laid down his life for his friend. But the character of the Gray Goose, who slept securely with one leg tucked up under her on the green, is so delightfully suggestive that we must give some of her wisdom as a specimen of the author's humorous but never unkindly hits at the weaknesses to which we are all prone.
"The Gray Goose and the big Miss Jessamine were the only elderly persons who kept their ages secret. Indeed, Miss Jessamine never mentioned any one's age, or recalled the exact year in which anything had happened. The Gray Goose also avoided dates. She never got farther than 'last Michaelmas,' 'the Michaelmas before that,' and 'the Michaelmas before the Michaelmas before that.' After this her head, which was small, became confused, and she said 'Ga-ga!' and changed the subject."
Then again:
"The Gray Goose always ran away at the first approach of the caravans, and never came back to the green till nothing was left of the fair but footmarks and oyster-shells. Running away was her pet principle; the only system, she maintained, by which you can live long and easily, and lose nothing.
"Why in the world should any one spoil the pleasures of life, or risk his skin, if he can help it?