[IV.—MERCY AND NOT SACRIFICE.]
Harry Jardine was taken to the Ewes some hours before his mother, who had happily been deceived as to his return on the previous night, was even apprised of his narrow escape. He received the greatest kindness from the Crawfurds, and his mother herself found it incumbent on her to write a little note to the Ewes, thanking the family for their humanity and benevolence towards her son. It is possible, had Mrs. Jardine been awakened to her son's danger a little sooner, and before its traces were entirely blotted out, the expressions in the note might have been a few shades less general and cold.
Mr. Crawfurd excused her fully. He would not have expected Harry to come back to the Ewes, though he rejoiced, from the bottom of his heart, that Joanna had served the young fellow. How much his poor father would have been delighted in him? Mr. Crawfurd rejoiced, although he was too righteous and humble-minded to say to himself that God was appeased, or that He had permitted this atonement as a sign in answer to his life-long penance.
Harry Jardine represented a different theory; he would be a dolt, a brute, unpardonably vindictive, if he did not cherish all friendly feelings to the Crawfurds; if he did not visit them openly and frankly. He did visit at the Ewes, but he found the plainest opportunities ready made for him during one fortnight at Hurlton, to come in contact with Joanna Crawfurd. She had gone there to look after Conny, suborned by Mrs. Maxwell, and laid up with a sore throat, and forlorn and wretched if one of her sisters was not looking after her.
This intercourse could scarcely fail to have one grand climax. Joanna, the thoughtful, imaginative, true, tender woman—a fair woman besides, with that one little blot which singularly appealed to him with a harsh sweet voice—a sufficiently rare woman, to stand quite distinct from her sisters and companions in the light of the practical, active, ardent, honest heart—became the one mistress in the world for Harry Jardine, coveted and craved by him as the best gift of God, without which the others were comparatively worthless, and for which he could have been willing to sacrifice them one and all. Harry himself, in after years, confessed that since the moment he awakened from that leaden drowsiness on the moor, the image of Joanna Crawfurd, tending him as a mother her sick child, was constantly before him.
Joanna had not precisely the same experience. From the moment that, with the prescience of a woman where feelings are concerned, she saw the end, she avoided Harry Jardine with all her power. Harry's generous determination and daring, his fearlessness, confidence, and steadfastness overpowered her.
Mr. Crawfurd was dreadfully upset by Harry Jardine's application to him, his claim for forbearance, his entreaty for grace, and his candid confession that his mother was violently opposed to his suit. It was a case which could neither be considered nor rejected without remorse. Oh, bitterness, which spread like an infection through so many years, and into such different relations, and spoilt even the young man's fairness, good faith, free forgiveness, and the purity and earnestness of his passion, the pearl of his manhood, which, if lost to him, would be a loss indeed! How Harry implored Mr. Crawfurd to spare it to him, to reflect that it was the greatest benefit which he asked at his hands, to pause before he denied it to him solely because he had been the unfortunate means of depriving him of his father!
Harry had agitating scenes with his mother besides; these two had never been placed against each other before, and the contest between them was neither gracious nor good for either heart.