“Well, gentlemen; what do you say?”
The factor gave in his adhesion; his own vague hope from India could not stand before a definite proposal like this. “It looks well, Mr. Archibald; upon my word, I do think it looks well.”
“It is quite above my expectations,” said Archibald. “I am perfectly ready to enter upon my probation at once—without delay. I accept your friend’s offer without the least hesitation, Mr. Foreman; write him, I beg, and tell him so, and let the time be fixed for the commencement of my apprenticeship—and then, if I satisfy my new employers—then, for the shores of that luxurious Spain in the west, and such prosperity as Providence shall send me there. Nay, nay; you look sorrowfully at me, as if I mocked myself; I do not—my second beginning is more hopeful than my first. I will do no dishonor—I trust—I hope I shall do no further dishonor to your kindness, or my father’s name: only let us have it settled upon, and begun as early as possible, Mr. Foreman. I have no time to lose.”
“I am glad! I am delighted!” exclaimed the honest lawyer, “to see you take it so well. If the first disagreeables were but over!”
“Never mind the first disagreeables, Mr. Foreman,” said Archibald, cheerfully. “I shall be the better of difficulties to begin with—if I only were begun.”
“We will not linger about that,” said Mr. Foreman, catching the contagion of his client’s cheerfulness, which, to tell the truth, was more in seeming than reality. “I shall write to Mr. Lumsden at once.”
Other arrangements had to be made before they left Portoran—the transfer of Alexander Semple’s lease to Mr. Ferguson being the principal matter which occupied them. Semple was a soft, spiritless man, of indolent temper; and no enterprise, and the bleak, unprofitable acres were certain to remain as unprofitable and bleak as ever during his occupancy. Already many times Mr. Coulter had sighed over them, and poured into the ears of their listless tenant vain hints, and unheeded remonstrances. Mr. Coulter was most pleasantly busied now devising the means for their fertilization, and, in company with Mr. Ferguson, had already taken various very long, wearisome, and delightful walks, partly from a neighborly regard for the interests of the broken man, and partly from his own entire devotion to his respectable and most important science, advising with the new farmer as to the various profitable and laborious processes necessary for these unpromising and barren fields. The rental Archibald Sutherland insisted should remain in the factor’s hands, or in Mr. Foreman’s hands, or in the Portoran branch of the British Linen Company’s Bank, if his zealous friends insisted on that, his own resolution being to spend nothing beyond the income he worked for, however small that might be at first. His own tastes had always been simple, and money the mere bits of gold and scraps of paper—had become precious in his eyes. There was little fear either that he should ever be a worshipper of the golden calf—the unrighteous Mammon. But Strathoran—his home—his birth-place—the house of his fathers!
He saw its turrets rising from among the trees as he turned his horse’s head from the pleasant threshold of Woodsmuir, to which he now paid his first visit. These fair slopes and hollows, the brown moor running far northward, the gray hills in the distance, with the red glory of the frosty January sunlight on their bare, uncovered heads. What were they now to him? What? Dearer, more precious than ever; the aim to which he looked forward through a dim vista of hard-working years; a prize to be won; a goal to be attained; a treasure to be brought by his own toil! Was there no sickening of the heart, as the young man, born and nurtured in that proud old house of Strathoran, the heir of all its inherited honors, looked forward to the lifetime of toil that lay before him, obscure, ignoble, unceasing? The office in Glasgow where he should be put on trial, and have the strange new experience of unknown masters, on whose favor depended all his prospects; the still more dim and unknown counting-house of Buenos Ayres, with its exile and estrangement from home-looks and language. Was not his heart sickening within him? No! Who that has felt his pulses quicken, and his heart beat, at the anticipation of a clear and honorable future, filled only with unencumbered labor, a healthful frame, a sound mind, and a great aim in view, could ask that question? Sickness, deadly and painful, overpowered Archibald Sutherland’s heart when he looked behind; that wild lee-shore of weakness, those fierce rocks of temptation and passion upon which his fortune and his honor had made disastrous shipwreck. These are the things to sicken hearts and crush them, not the bracing chill air that swept the path to which he began to bind his breast. The hill was steep, the way long, rough, laborious. What matter? There was hope, and mental health, and moral safety in his toils; a definite aim at its summit; an All-guiding Providence, giving strength to the toiler, and promising a blessing upon every righteous effort, to uphold and bear him on.
The cloud that had passed over that little, blue-eyed, gentle girl at the Tower—the new interest which occupied the mind of Mrs. Catherine, were known to Archibald in some degree, and interested him deeply. But the great secret—that Norman lived yet to be toiled, and hoped, and prayed for—was not communicated to either Archibald or Alice. They knew only that their friends believed him unjustly accused, and intended to labor for proof of that—proof which might be difficult enough to find, after the lapse of so many years—but the fact of the engagement between Lewis and Alice, was quite sufficient to account for the suddenly awakened anxiety concerning Norman’s innocence.
The first week of the new year was past: the next day little Alice was to return home. They were all sitting in Mrs. Catherine’s inner drawing-room, about her cheerful tea-table—Mrs. Catherine herself, Alice, Anne, Archibald, and Lewis. The spirits of the young people had risen; they were all hopeful, courageous, and conversing with that intimate and familiar kindliness which unites so much more closely and tenderly on the eve of a parting than at any other time. Alice was to sing to them—to sing as Anne and Archibald begged—that song of the ‘Oran’ which had moved them so deeply on the night of the new year. The sweet young voice had grown more expressive since that time; the gentle, youthful spirit had passed through greater vicissitudes in that week than in all its previous bright lifetime, and, therefore, the song was better rendered—its tinge of sadness—its warm breath of hope—