Something like a groan burst from Cameron in spite of himself. “Ay, she’s Mary!” cried the Highlander, with a cry of fierce despair and anguish not to be described, “but laddie, what is that to you?”
They were a world apart as they sat together on either side of that little table, with the pale little light between them—the boy in the awe of his concern and sympathy—the man in the fiery struggle and humiliation of his manhood wrung to the heart. Cosmo did not venture to look up, lest the very glance—the water in his eyes, might irritate the excited mind of his friend. He answered softly, almost humbly, with the deep imaginative respect of youth.
“She is Mary of Melmar, Cameron—the old lady; my father’s kinswoman whom he was—fond of—who ran away to marry a Frenchman—who is the heir of Melmar—Melmar which was to be Huntley’s, if I had not found her. It can not be Huntley’s now; and I must stay behind to complete the discovery I have made.”
Perhaps Cosmo’s tone was not remarkably cheerful; the Highlander looked at him with an impatient and indignant glance.
“Why should it be Huntley’s when it is hers?” he said, almost angrily. “Would you grudge her rights to a helpless woman? you, boy! are even you beguiled when yourself is concerned?”
“You are unjust,” said Cosmo. “I do not hesitate a moment—I have done nothing to make any one doubt me—nor ever will.”
The lad was indignant in proportion to his uneasiness and discomfort in his discovery, but Cameron was not sufficiently at rest himself to see through the natural contradictions of his young companion. He turned away from him with the half-conscious gesture of a sick heart.
“I am unjust—I believe it,” he said, with a strange humility; “lands and silver are but names to me. I am like other folk—I can be liberal with what I have not—ay, more! I can even throw away my own,” continued Cameron, his strong voice trembling between real emotion and a bitter self-sarcasm, “so that nobody should be the better for the waste; that’s my fortune. Your estate will be of use to somebody—take comfort, callant; if you are disappointed, there’s still some benefit in the gift. But ye might give all and no mortal be a gainer—waste, lavish, pour forth every thing ye have, and them the gift was for, if ever they knew, be the worse and not the better! Ay! that’s some men’s portion in this life.”
Cosmo did not venture to say a word—that bitter sense of waste and prodigality, the whole treasure of a man’s heart poured forth in vain, and worse than in vain, startled the lad with a momentary vision of depths into which he could not penetrate. For Cameron was not a boy, struggling with a boy’s passion of disappointment and mortification. He was a strong, tenacious, self-concentrated man. He had made a useless, vain, unprofitable holocaust, which could not give even a moment’s pleasure to the beloved of his imagination, for whom he had designed to do every thing, and the unacceptable gift returned in a bitterness unspeakable upon the giver’s heart. Other emotions, even more heavy and grievous, struggled also within him. His old scruples against leaving his garret and studies, his old feelings of guilt in deferring voluntarily, for his own pleasure and comfort, the beginning of his chosen “work,” came back upon his silent Celtic soul in a torrent of remorse and compunction, which he could not and would not confide to any one. If he had not forsaken the labors to which God had called him, could he have been left to cast his own heart away after this desperate and useless fashion? With these thoughts his fiery spirit consumed itself. Bitter at all times must be the revulsion of love which is in vain, but this was bitterer than bitterness—a useless, unlovely, unprofitable sacrifice, producing nothing save humiliation and shame.
“I see, Cosmo,” he said, after a little pause, “I see that you can not leave St. Ouen to-morrow. Do your duty. You were fain to find her, and you have found her. It might be but a boy’s impulse of generosity, and it may bring some disappointment with it; but it’s right, my lad! and it’s something to succeed in what you attempt, even though you do get a dinnle thereby in some corner of your own heart. Never fear for Huntley—if he’s such as you say, the inheritance of the widow would be sacred to your brother. Now, laddie, fare you well. I’m going back to my duty that I have forsaken. Henceforth you’re too tender a companion for the like of me. I’ve lost—time, and such matters that you have and to spare; you and I are on different levels, Cosmo; and now, my boy, fare ye well.”