The portrait was of a woman still rich with girlhood's charm. Of about nineteen years, I should say, tall and graceful and sweet of countenance, with a great wealth of hair, with eyes that no flame but love's could have kindled, her lips, even in a picture, instinct with pure passion, and her whole being evidently fragrant and luscious as Scottish girlhood alone can be. For the sweetest flowers are nourished at the breast of the most rugged hills.
I was still reading the story of love and innocence and hope, all of which were written in the lovely face before me, when Angus said very gently:
"Read the letter, sir."
The writing on the paper which enclosed the picture had escaped my notice. It was a letter from Angus' mother, sent with the daguerreotypes. Its closing words ran thus:
"I send ye this picture o' masel' and the ane o' the man I loved sae weel. No ither picture have I had taken, nor ither shall there be. It was taken for yir faither before the gloamin' settled doon on you and me, ma laddie. It was taken for him, as was every breath I drew, for I loved him wi' every ane.
"Ye maunna think ower hard o' him, laddie, for yir mother canna drive him forth, so ye maun bide thegither in this broken hairt o' mine. And laddie, I am askin' God to keep me pure, for my love will hae its bloom some day far ayont us, like the bonny heather when the winter's bye. And I want to be worthy when it comes. I'm sair soiled, I ken, but love can weave its robe o' white for the very hairt it stained. And I maun be true till the gloamin's gone. So think o' yir mother as aye true to yir faither, and it'll mebbe help yir sorrow to ken there's aye this bond between yir faither and her wha bore ye. And Angus, dinna let him ken, gin ye should ever meet. Yir mother's bearin' her sorrow all alane in Ettrick and her laddie'll bear it ayont the ocean. We're a' in God's guid hands. Your loving mother,
Janet Strachan."
I returned the well worn letter to the unhappy hand from which I had received it. He tenderly wrapped it about his mother's picture and thrust the parcel back beside the loyal heart which shared, as it was bidden, the great sorrow and disgrace.
I then cast about in my mind for the next step which should be taken. Ordination I knew there could now be none. The pestilence of anger and shame and sin was upon us all. Dark horror sat upon the faces of the waiting congregation, their eyes still fixed on these two actors of this so sudden tragedy. It may have been that the proof of kinship, as demonstrated by these confronting faces, was finding its way into their hearts. These faces were still fastened the one upon the other, the younger with glowing scorn, the older with mingled love and tenderness, blended with infinite self-reproach.
I could see no course open to me except the dismissal of the congregation, and so announced my purpose.