‘Your sister will want you,’ he said, almost roughly; ‘it is getting late, and this is not the place for a prayer-meeting; let me take you home.’
‘Oh, Ailie, I must go home to my Margaret,’ said Isabel, clasping her hands. Nature was contending, with natural awe and reverence, in the girl’s mind. She did not reject the authority of the holy maid for one moment—she was ready to yield to its power; but as soon as the possibility of escape became visible to her, she seized it anxiously. ‘She’ll be waiting and watching for me; and you know how ill she is, and I must not keep her anxious,’ pleaded Isabel; ‘but I’ll think upon all you say.’
‘Aye, gang your ways, gang your ways,’ said Ailie, turning her back upon them and dismissing them with a wave of her hand. ‘Put it off to a convenient season; wait till you’re hardened in your worldly thoughts, and the Lord has shut-to the door; but dinna come then and say, Give us of your oil, for there will be nane to give in that day—nane to give! The market’s open the noo, and plenty to fill your vessels; but in that day there will be nane. Gang your ways to Margret, and tell her she’s but a faint heart, that will lie down and die, when the Lord has that need of her for His work. I’m no saying she’s not a child of God, but she has a faint heart. Gang your ways.’
‘If you knew my Margaret better, ye would never dare to speak like this,’ said Isabel, flushing into opposition. Stapylton drew her hand into his arm, and led her away.
‘Come now,’ he said, ‘come while she has turned her head. I want no more sermons for my part. Your sister is waiting, Isabel—come! this is too much for me.’
Isabel suffered herself to be led across the heather, scarcely aware, in her excitement, of the close pressure with which her lover held her hand. She was angry for Margaret’s sake. ‘Nobody understands,’ she murmured to herself. ‘Nobody knows what they’re saying. Her to be blamed that is the flower of all!’ and turned her head, notwithstanding Stapylton’s opposition, to maintain her sister’s cause against her rival. But Ailie had turned away. She was going back, moving slowly among the heather, with her head bent and her eyes cast down, dreaming after her fashion, though not dreams like those of Isabel. Ailie was thinking—with much confusion of images and vagueness of apprehension, but with the exalted glow of ascetic passion—of the love of God. Poor Isabel was trembling with all the complications, the duties, and desires going contradictory to each other which adhere to the love of man.
‘I suppose she must be mad,’ said Stapylton; ‘nothing but madness could account for it. That is what comes of prayer-meetings and such stuff. Or if she’s not mad, she’s cunning and likes the power.’
‘And how do you think you can judge?’ cried Isabel, turning upon him with the ready irritation of excitement,—‘you that know nothing of Ailie, nor of her way of living. If you were healed all in a moment and raised out of your bed, who would you believe did it but God? and could you stop to think and consider the question if you were mad or not, before you spoke. Let them judge that know!’
‘Never mind,’ said the young man, caressing the hand he held, ‘you little fury! I don’t know and I don’t care; but you never thanked me for reminding you of your sister, and freeing you from that mad creature. Now she is gone there is no hurry, Isabel. It is not late, after all.’
‘But Margaret will want me,’ said the girl. ‘No; I’ll not wait, I must go home.’