And in her little room alone, Helen Buchanan paused at this new starting-point of life, to look upon its mercies which were past, its difficulties which were before her: and with tears upon her cheek, rendered the thanks and sought the strength which she owed and needed. A new beginning: to be loftier, purer, braver than it had ever been; and upon the great Ideal which she sought to reach, the light streamed full down from the skies. For it was not an ideal, but a resemblance; the human features of that wondrous Man, who has carried our nature to the throne of Heaven, and wears his universal crown upon a human brow.
CHAPTER XVI.
“Now draws he to the west, and noble clouds
Near to his royal person all the day
Attend him to his chamber. In his eye,
His broad, full, fearless eye, no faint or chill
Is visible; grandly and solemnly,
As who hath well done work which shall remain,
He marches to his rest.
Lift up thy gorgeous curtains, thou great sky!
That he may enter in. Fall back, O clouds!
Where now he goeth, he must go alone.”
“I did not think,” wrote Adam Graeme, as he took up the narrative he had concluded long ago, “that I should ever add more to this record; but strange things have happened with me, since in this quiet study of mine I recorded my resolutions here. My resolutions! I find no trace of them anywhere, except on this page which already begins to grow yellow, and fade into the guise of old age like its human neighbours. They are gone, like the winter ice into the bosom of our wan water, pleasantly melted under the sunshine, into the stream which gave them birth.
“For yonder, with the light mercifully shining on it, stands Charlie’s chair; and beside me on this table are the first lilies of May, with dew upon their snowy leaves. They remind me of my child; not of the dead only, who long ago trod down the early blossoms of my life into the dust, but of the living Lilias, who is mine, not to be lost to me by any change. She has gone away from my old house now, with her bridegroom, but she is still my child. They blend together in my mind, the mother and the daughter, and in memory and in presence they cling to me, where neither jealousy nor fear can interpose, always my own.
“And through the open turret window yonder, I hear the sound of a frank, bold voice; my heir, the manful and stout representative of the old Graemes. He is not like me, and it is well; his honest, joyous, youthful strength will raise up the decaying race. I cannot give my thoughts to Halbert—I cannot bequeath to him my old faculty of dreams—nor would I if I could. Some one, whom I know not, will inherit from me this contemplative life. I would not give it, if I had the power with all its sadnesses and glooms, to Halbert: he has the lands, the old honour, the good name. I am glad that I leave them to him pure, and that he is true and honest, and has not the spirit of his father. His father—who can tell? the greater mysteries of truth might open to him dying, who, living, heeded them not; but we do not speak of Charlie Graeme. Humbly in awe and silence we leave him in the great Hand which has taken him away; ourselves having pity on the dead.
“For Hew and Lucy are with me again, gray-haired people in their father’s house; and Lucy’s son and my Lilias are our common hope. The three of us have had diverse lots, parted in far distant places, exposed to strange fortunes; but we end as we began, with kindred aims and kindred fancies, and travel together towards the one conclusion of mortal life, which is the same to all.
“Hew’s troubles have been those of captivity and exile. To his warm heart, which always has answered so tenderly to voices of kindred and friendship, a very hard and bitter form of the inevitable discipline; but he has borne it bravely, and the frank, simple, guileless spirit has come unaltered through all. When we wander together by our Waterside, when I feel Hew’s arm diving through mine as it used to do thirty years ago, when I hear his unchanged voice addressing me, ‘Man, Adam!’ I close my eyes and thank God. We are young again; the intervening time floats on the air about us, a dream which we have dreamed together, and the enthusiast lads who leaned over yonder wall upon the dim hill-side, looking out dreamily over the royal city, are here, on the banks of the home river, as hopeful, as undoubting, and scarcely wiser than when they parted.
“Heavy wisdoms that come with years, dark experiences that close men’s hearts, let us be thankful that they have not fallen on us—that we are as we were; carrying young hearts with us, into the purer country.
“Lucy has had sorrows other than these. Long patience, the silent burden of slow years and quietness such as only women bear; tending the weakness of the stern old man who lived so long in his solitary pride, and after some year or two of tranquil gladness—no longer, I think—weeping the tears of a widow. We reverence her calmer peace, as we reverenced her youthful gravity long ago, when we were boys, and when the budding woman called us so, and was gentle to us in her young wisdom. It is true her hair is white as the leaves of my lilies, and that her cheek is colourless, and has something of the ashy hue of age; but Lucy, like Hew, is unchanged. Graver, wiser, more serious still than we are, smiling the old gentle composed smile at our boyish fancies, speaking the old words of quiet counsel, directing us in the old calm playful fashion. Isabell at Murrayshaugh, simple, kind heart, wept for the broken romance, the fair, lost Miss Lucy: but I, who knew her better than Isabell, cannot think thus, for she is still Lucy Murray, the same as she ever was.