I read and enthusiastically admired, and while admiring tried to appreciate the difficulty which women so placed would find in realising sufferings of which they could know so little by experience—of some troubles they could absolutely know nothing—the want of bread, the deadly fatigue of overwork, the misery of children crying for food, the bitterness of bare poverty, of homes which do not shelter, of empty fireplaces in cold, and shadowless rooms in the heat—and in such heat as we have been taught lately can be suffered even in this dear England of ours.
In the intense heat of the day—while the roses drooped and seemed to sigh for rain, and the birds were silent, and by the shaded pool, at the dark water’s edge, the cows were enjoying some freshness, and the white flocks of waterfowl cowered and waited for the evening breeze—in the stillness my thoughts floated away to curious visions, partly suggested by a lovely series of pictures in the Arabian Nights of magical help and daring exploits, and one, the last (not in any English edition), of a range of mountain caverns, with glittering temptations, through which the prince has to fight his way till he comes to the last vast hall shrouded in darkness and ended by dim heavy curtains, which opened, disclosing the radiant islands in the seven seas, where his love reigns, and the water-nymphs receive him as he leaps into the waves and, singing, bear him to his queen, to rescue and love her.
Visions are curious and arbitrary things, and while dreaming of this often haunting story, I thought that, instead of the gigantic fiend who in the story waves his scimitar over the lover, I saw two radiant angels parting those magic curtains as I in my dream gazed, and they said to me—
“You have loved and revered the courage and self-devotion of the noble servants of the Most High, who have abandoned the luxuries and repose of wealth to save their fellow mortals—the poor, the helpless, and the suffering. Would you know what more can be done?
“There are records in the kingdom of our Master of fellow-servants of ours—women, with no power but their faith, no means but those like the feast for five thousand provided by their Lord by the Galilean lake from a few loaves and small fishes, no strength but the divine energy of love—these servants of God, poor, weak, alone, have done work which has caused joy in Heaven and saved those who, but for them and others like them, would have been lost. Will you dream on, and we will show you visions of some of these?”
In breathless expectation I waited, and gradually the vision resolved itself before me into a wild mountainous country. A castle up the hills was besieged by a horde of savage and furious soldiery. Defence was hopeless, but the few loyal retainers held their own till the three little orphan children of the lord were hurried out of the back postern by their nurse and one (the only) trooper who could be spared to drive the mule on which the two little leddies were seated and to carry the young lord.
Heaven helped them and they safely reached the hut where, concealed and protected by Elspeth the nurse, they escaped the search of their enemies. By day and night this devoted servant worked for them, tended them. To feed them she starved, to clothe them she managed to get by night and hidden mountain paths to the few nobles still left on whom she could rely with the words “My young leddies need this,” “My little lord needs that.”
Years go by, and the brave old Scotchwoman has fulfilled her trust. The young lord has regained his inheritance, and now they all plead that she to whom they owe everything should accompany them to the noble home she has so helped them to regain. But I see her, in advancing years, still spinning on in the Highland home. At all times of need, whether of joy or woe, they call for Elspeth, and she is with them again; but she died as she lived, in the poor home of her fathers, but up-borne by the prayers and the reverence of her people. “Poor, yet making many rich.”
It was in vain the young lord and her leddies claimed her for their richer life of competence and power, but the old Hieland woman said, “Na, na.” She would go to them when on great occasions they wanted her, but her strong independent life was still to be lived among the hills she loved and among her own people; and by the work of her own hands she would still live, and in her hut she would die.
The dream curtains slowly descended, but my last look at the beautiful Highland scene was on the cottage on which the sunshine of Heaven’s blessing still lingered, and on the noble peasant woman who had saved her chieftain’s children.