It was a Lover and His Lass

by Mrs. Oliphant

Now whether it was simple instinct, or whether it was a gleam of genius unknown in her before (and the two things are not much different), Miss Jean, as soon as she perceived what it meant, which it was so difficult to do, perceived the way out of it in a moment. Her first words closed the whole matter as effectually, as completely, as if it had never been.

"You would never hear of that," she said. "How should you? I was but very young myself; at an age when that is natural. He was a sailor and a poor man. My father would never hear of it, and perhaps it could not have been; it is not for me to say. But the Lord had settled that in His great way, that puts us all to shame. It is my delight and pride," said Miss Jean, her soft eyes filling with something that looked like light rather than tears, "that it was permitted to him to end his days saving life, and not destroying it. There were seven of them that he saved. It is a long time ago. You know grief cannot last; it is just like a weed, it is not a seed of God; but love lasts long, long, just for ever. There are few people that mind, or ever take thought about him and me. But just now and then to a kind heart like you, and one that understands, it comes into my head to tell that old story. You would scarcely be born," Miss Jean added, with a smile that seemed to Lewis ineffable, full of the tenderest sweetness. He was entirely overcome. He had not been used to the restraints which Englishmen make for themselves. His eyes were full and running over. He leaned forward to her, listening, with a kind of worship in his face. He had forgotten all the incongruous folly of his suit as if it had never been, without being ashamed or wounded, or feeling any obstacle rise up because of it, between him and her. She had opened her tender heart to him in the very act of showing that it was closed and sacred for ever and ever. How long that moment lasted they neither of them knew. But presently he came to himself, feeling her soft, caressing hand upon his arm and hearing her say, "You will go and play me something, my bonnie man, and that will put us all right."

"My bonnie man!"—he had heard the women calling their children so. It seemed to him the most exquisite expression of motherhood, of tender meaning and unspeakable distance, that he had ever heard in his life. He went away like a child to the piano, and sat down there, hushed and yet happy, his heart quivering with sympathy, and affection, and ease, and peace; and Miss Jean folded her soft hands in her lap, and gave herself up to listening, with that look of entire absorption and content which he thought he had never seen in any other face. The music wafted her away out of everything troublous and painful, wafted her feelings to a higher presence, into some ante-chamber where chosen souls can hear some notes of the songs of the angels. He had played Beethoven to her and Mozart on the other occasions, now he chose Handel, filling the silent room with anthems and symphonies of heaven. He watched her lean back, her eyes growing dim with a silent rapture, till it became apparent that all the circumstances of common life had gone from her, and that her soul had lost itself in that world of exquisite sensation and perfect peace.

This was the end of Lewis's first attempt at wooing. Before he had done, Miss Margaret came in, who made him a sign to go on, and listened very respectfully, with great attention and stillness, making not a movement that could disturb her sister, or the performance. When it was over, she said it was beautiful, and that he must stay and take a cup of tea; and presently Lilias and Katie joined the party, two fair young creatures full of what is considered the poetry of life. Miss Jean had resumed her table-cover by this time, and sat among her silks, puzzling a little which to choose, very undecided and vacillating, between a yellow-brown and an orange red for one of the shades of her carnation. Lilias and Katie both gave advice which was authoritative, wondering how there could be any question as to which was the best.

"It is your eyes that are going," Lilias said, in thoughtless impatience.

"My dear, I suppose it must just be that," said Miss Jean. She was exactly as she always was, returned into all the little details of her gentle life, and not one of them was aware into what lofty regions she had been wandering. She spoke without the slightest embarrassment to Lewis, and looked up with all her usual kindness, quite matter-of-fact and ordinary, into his face. "You will not be long of coming back," she said, with a smile.

He felt too much bewildered to make any reply; the change from that wonderful interview in which he had been raised from earth to heaven, in which his heart had beat so high, and his life had hung in the balance, into the calm scene of the drawing-room with its tea-table, the lady who said that last thing was just beautiful, and the airy talk of the girls, was so bewildering that he could not realise it. He had been obliged to rouse himself up, to act like an ordinary denizen of the daylight, to laugh and listen even to Katie, as if that strange episode had never been; but when he went away he went back into it, and could not think even of Lilias. With what a strange gravity as of despair he had gone away from the side of Lilias to make this attempt which he thought honour and good faith made necessary, feeling all the while that in doing so he was giving up the brighter happiness, the more natural life, that had been revealed to him. But, after that interview with Miss Jean, Lilias herself had seemed tame. He did not wish to stay in her presence, to behold her beauty; he wanted to get away to think over the strange scene that had passed. He made his way through the park, not thinking where he was going, as far as New Murkley, then through the woods to the old quarry and the waterside, and during all this round he thought of nothing but Miss Jean and her story, and the way in which she had put him from her without a word of refusal, without a harsh tone, putting him away, yet bringing him closer to her very feet. He was refused, and that by a woman who, in comparison with himself, was an old woman, who permitted him to see that his suit was as folly to her; that she did not and would not give it a moment's consideration; and yet he was not affronted nor offended, nor did he feel the smallest shade of bitterness.

It all seemed astonishing to Lewis. Was it the difference of English ways and manners, or was it individual? But he could not make it clear to himself which it was. He walked round by the water-side and into the village that way, not to distract himself, but to have more time to think it over. His heart had been so deeply touched that he was still quivering with its effect. Everything seemed to have changed to him. He had believed last time he went by this way that his life was to be spent henceforward in a state of voluntary renunciation. He had meant to give up all that was warmest and sweetest in it, to content himself with a subdued and self-restrained well-being. Now all that was over, the situation changed, and he might hope like any other man to have what all men coveted. And yet he was not exhilarated. His mind had not leapt back to the thought of Lilias, as would have been so natural. Lilias seemed to have faded into the background; he scarcely thought of her at all. Happiness seemed to have become a thing secondary, almost an inferior item in the history even of the heart.

The landscape was very still in the afternoon quiet. The children were all at school, except the funny little parti-coloured group which belonged to the ferryman, little creatures like chickens, with lint-white heads and round, red cheeks, who were always on the very edge of the river, in risk, as it seemed, of their lives, but to whom nothing ever happened, except an occasional shrill cry of the mother from the cottage, or deep bass objurgation of the ferryman himself. They should all have been drowned a dozen times over, but were not. The big boat was making its way across with a farmer's shandry-dan upon it, reflected in the clear brown of the rushing water. Just within the shadow of the high cliff above which was crowned by the tower of the Stormonts, Lewis saw a fish leap half out of the water, with a gleam and splash. This sufficed to do what even Lilias had not done, to turn the current of his thoughts. He had not been able to get back to any consideration of his changed prospects and regained freedom, but the flash of the trout struck some accidental chord. With a half-laugh at the curious importance of this new subject, he crossed the broad opening of the village street, and went along the bank to Adam's usual nook opposite the cliff. There Adam was posted, as usual, one foot advanced to give him a firmer standing ground, his arms thrown high, a fine athletic image, against the brown water and the green leaves. Lewis went and stood by him for a time without saying anything. He felt a certain ease and sense of deliverance in the quiet scene, where there was enough to occupy the eye and a certain superficial mind, which occasionally takes the place of the real one, and to make thought unnecessary. His deeper cogitations dropped like a falling wind, and he watched with an amused interest the movements so wary, and skilful, the deep silence, and absorbed excitement of the fisher. It was only when the trout was landed and Adam took breath, that Lewis ventured to speak.

"That is a fine fellow," he said.