“I like your tale,” he said, “which had a different conclusion and a more noble one than what I looked for at the opening.” Then he leaned out and put a hand on John Splendid’s sleeve. “Human nature,” said he, “is the most baffling of mysteries. I said I knew you from boot to bonnet, but there’s a corner here I have still to learn the secret of.”
“Well, well,” cried M’Iver, lifting a glass confusedly, and seating himself again at the board, “here’s a night-cap—MacCailein Mor and the Campbell cause!”
“And a thought for the lady of Regenwalde,” I whispered, pressing his foot with my toe beneath the table, and clinking my glass with his.
We drank, the two of us, in a silence, and threw the glasses on the hearth.
The windows, that now were shuttered, rattled to gowsty airs, and the rain drummed on. All about the house, with its numerous corners, turrets, gussets, and corbie-stepped gables, the fury of the world rose and wandered, the fury that never rests but is ever somewhere round the ancient universe, jibing night and morning at man’s most valiant effort. It might spit and blow till our shell shook and creaked, and the staunch walls wept, and the garden footways ran with bubbling waters, but we were still to conquer. Our lanthorn gleamed defiance to that brag of night eternal, that pattern-piece of the last triumph of the oldest enemy of man—Blackness the Rider, who is older than the hoary star.
Fresh wood hissed on the fire, but the candles burned low in their sockets. Sonachan and the baron-bailie slept with their heads on the table, and the man with the want, still sodden at the eyes, turned his wet hose upon his feet with a madman’s notion of comfort.
“I hope,” said M’Iver, “there’s no ambuscade here, as in the house of the cousin of his Grace of Pomerania. At least we can but bide on, whatever comes, and take the night’s rest that offers, keeping a man-about watch against intrusion.”
“There’s a watch more pressing still,” said Master Gordon, shaking the slumber off him and jogging the sleeping men upon the shoulders. “My soul watcheth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning. We have been wet with the showers of the mountain, like Job, and embracing the rock for want of a shelter. We are lone-haunted men in a wild land encompassed by enemies; let us thank God for our safety thus far, and ask. His continued shield upon our flight.”
And in the silence of that great house, dripping and rocking in the tempest of the night, the minister poured out his heart in prayer. It had humility and courage too; it was imbued with a spirit strong and calm. For the first time my heart warmed to the man who in years after was my friend and mentor—Alexander Gordon, Master of the Arts, the man who wedded me and gave my children Christian baptism, and brought solace in the train of those little ones lost for a space to me among the grasses and flowers of Kilmalieu.