Alec Forbes of Howglen Part 53

"Oh Kate! How I love you!" he said.

Kate started. She was frightened. Her mind had been full of gentle thoughts. Yet she laid her hand on his arm and accepted the love.--But how?

"You dear boy!" she said.

Perhaps Kate's answer was the best she could have given. But it stung Alec to the heart, and they went home in a changed silence.--The resolution she came to upon the way was not so good as her answer.

She did not love Alec so. He could not understand her; she could not look up to him. But he was only a boy, and therefore would not suffer much. He would forget her as soon as she was out of his sight. So as he was a very dear boy, she would be as kind to him as ever she could, for she was going away soon.

She did not see that Alec would either take what she gave for more than she gave, or else turn from it as no gift at all.

When they reached the house, Alec, recovering himself a little, requested her to sing. She complied at once, and was foolish enough to sing the following

BALLAD.

It is May, and the moon leans down all night Over a blossomy land.

By her window sits the lady white, With her chin upon her hand.

"O sing to me, dear nightingale, The song of a year ago; I have had enough of longing and wail, Enough of heart-break and woe.

O glimmer on me, my apple-tree, Like living flakes of snow; Let odour and moonlight and melody In the old rich harmony flow."

The dull odours stream; the cold blossoms gleam; And the bird will not be glad.

The dead never speak when the living dream-- They are too weak and sad.

She listened and sate, till night grew late, Bound by a weary spell.

Then a face came in at the garden-gate, And a wondrous thing befell.

Up rose the joy as well as the love, In the song, in the scent, in the show!

The moon grew glad in the sky above, The blossom grew rosy below.

The blossom and moon, the scent and the tune, In ecstasy rise and fall.

But they had no thanks for the granted boon, For the lady forgot them all.

There was no light in the room except that of the s.h.i.+ning air. Alec sat listening, as if Kate were making and meaning the song. But notwithstanding the enchantment of the night, all rosy in the red glow of Alec's heart; notwithstanding that scent of gilly-flowers and sweet-peas stealing like love through every open door and window; notwithstanding the radiance of her own beauty, Kate was only singing a song. It is sad to have all the love and all the mystery to oneself--the other being the centre of the glory, and yet far beyond its outmost ring, sitting on a music-stool at a common piano old-fas.h.i.+oned and jingling, not in fairyland at all in fact, or even believing in its presence.

But that night the moon was in a very genial humour, and gave her light plentiful and golden. She would even dazzle a little, if one looked at her too hard. Sho could not dazzle Tibbie though, who was seated with Annie on the pale green gra.s.s, with the moon about them in the air and beneath them in the water.

"Ye say it's a fine munelicht nicht, Annie."

"Ay, 'deed is't. As bonnie a nicht as ever I saw."

"Weel, it jist pa.s.ses my comprehension--hoo ye can see, whan the air's like this. I' the winter ye canna see, for it's aye cauld whan the sun's awa; and though it's no cauld the nicht, I fin' that there's no licht i' the air--there's a differ; it's deid-like. But the soun' o'

the water's a' the same, and the smell o' some o' the flowers is bonnier i' the nicht nor i' the day. That's a' verra weel. But hoo ye can see whan the sun's awa, I say again, jist pa.s.ses my comprehension."

"It's the mune, ye ken, Tibbie."

"Weel, what's the mune? I dinna fin' 't. It mak's no impress upo'

me.--Ye _canna_ see sae weel's ye say, la.s.s!" exclaimed Tibbie, at length, in a triumph of incredulity and self a.s.sertion.

"Weel, gin ye winna believe me o' yer ain free will, Tibbie, I maun jist gar ye," said Annie. And she rose, and running into the cottage, fetched from it a small pocket Bible.

"Noo, ye jist hearken, Tibbie," she said, as she returned. And, opening the Bible, she read one of Tibbie's favourite chapters, rather slowly no doubt, but with perfect correctness.

"Weel, la.s.sie, I canna mak heid or tail o' 't."

"I'll tell ye, Tibbie, what the mune aye minds me o'. The face o' G.o.d's like the sun, as ye hae tellt me; for no man cud see him and live."

"That's no sayin', ye ken," interposed Tibbie, "that we canna see him efter we're deid."

"But the mune," continued Annie, disregarding Tibbie's interruption, "maun be like the face o' Christ, for it gies licht and ye can luik at it notwithstandin'. The mune's jist like the sun wi' the ower-muckle taen oot o' 't. Or like Moses wi' the veil ower's face, ye ken. The fowk cudna luik at him till he pat the veil on."

"Na, na, la.s.s; that winna do; for ye ken his c.o.o.ntenance was as the sun s.h.i.+neth in his strenth."

"Ay, but that was efter the resurrection, ye ken. I'm thinkin' there had been a kin' o' a veil ower his face a' the time he was upo' the earth; and syne whan he gaed whaur there war only heavenly een to luik at him, een that could bide it, he took it aff."

"Weel, I wadna wonner. Maybe ye're richt. And gin ye _be_ richt, that accounts for the Transfiguration. He jist lifted the veil aff o' 'm a wee, and the glory aneath it lap oot wi' a leme like the lichtnin'. But that munelicht! I can mak naething o' 't."

"Weel, Tibbie, I canna mak you oot ony mair nor ye can the munelicht.

Whiles ye appear to ken a' thing aboot the licht, an' ither whiles ye're clean i' the dark."

"Never ye min' me, la.s.s. I s' be i' the licht some day. Noo we'll gang in to the hoose."

CHAPTER LVI.

Murdoch Malison, the schoolmaster, was appointed to preach in the parish church the following Sunday. He had never preached there, for he had been no favourite with Mr Cowie. Now, however, that the good man was out of the way, they gave him a chance, and he caught at it, though not without some misgivings. In the school-desk, "he was like a maister or a pope;" but the pulpit--how would he fill that? Two resolutions he came to; the first that he would not read his sermon, but _commit_ it and deliver it as like the extempore utterance of which he was incapable as might be--a piece of falsehood entirely understood, and justified by Scotch custom; the second, to take rather more than a hint from the fas.h.i.+on of preaching now so much in favour amongst the seceders and missionars: he would be a _Jupiter tonans_, wielding the forked lightnings of the law against the sins of Glamerton.

So, on the appointed day, having put on a new suit of black, and the gown over it, he ascended the pulpit stairs, and, conscious of a strange timidity, gave out the psalm. He cast one furtive glance around, as he took his seat for the singing, and saw a number of former as well as present pupils gathered to hear him, amongst whom were the two Truffeys, with their grandfather seated between them. He got through the prayer very well, for he was accustomed to that kind of thing in the school. But when he came to the sermon, he found that to hear boys repeat their lessons and punish them for failure, did not necessarily stimulate the master's own memory.

He gave out his text: The Book of the Prophet Joel, first chapter, fourth verse. Joel, first and fourth. "That which the palmer-worm hath left, hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left, hath the canker-worm eaten; and that which the canker-worm hath left, hath the caterpillar eaten."

Now if he could have read his sermon, it would have shown itself a most creditable invention. It had a general introduction upon the temporal punishment of sin; one head ent.i.tled, "The completeness of the infliction;" and another, "The punishment of which this is the type;"

the latter showing that those little creeping things were not to be compared to the great creeping thing, namely, the worm that never dies.

These two heads had a number of horns called _particulars_; and a tail called an _application_, in which the sins of his hearers were duly chastised, with vague and awful threats of some vengeance not confined to the life to come, but ready to take present form in such a judgment as that described in the text.

But he had resolved not to read his sermon. So he began to repeat it, with sweeps of the hands, pointings of the fingers, and other such tricks of second-rate actors, to aid the self-delusion of his hearers that it was a genuine present outburst from the soul of Murdoch Malison. For they all knew as well as he did, that his sermon was only "cauld kail het again." But some family dishes--Irish stew, for example, or Scotch broth--may be better the second day than the first; and where was the harm? All concerned would have been perfectly content, if he had only gone on as he began. But, as he approached the second head, the fear suddenly flashed through his own that he would not be able to recall it; and that moment all the future of his sermon was a blank. He stammered, stared, did nothing, thought nothing--only felt himself in h.e.l.l. Roused by the sight of the faces of his hearers growing suddenly expectant at the very moment when he had nothing more to give them, he gathered his seven fragmentary wits, and as a last resort, to which he had had a vague regard in putting his ma.n.u.script in his pocket, resolved to read the remainder. But in order to give the change of mode an appearance of the natural and suitable, he managed with a struggle to bring out the words:

"But, my brethren, let us betake ourselves to the written testimony."

Every one concluded he was going to quote from Scripture; but instead of turning over the leaves of the Bible, he plunged his hand into the abysses of his coat. Horror of horrors for the poor autocrat!--the pocket was as empty as his own memory; in fact it was a mere typical pocket, typical of the brains of its owner. The cold dew of agony broke over him; he turned deadly pale; his knees smote one another; but he made yet, for he was a man of strong will, a final frantic effort to bring his discourse down the inclined plane of a conclusion.

"In fine," he stammered "my beloved brethren, if you do not repent and be converted and return to the Lord, you will--you will--you will have a very bad harvest."