Warlock o' Glenwarlock Part 65

"H'ard ever onybody sic styte! As gien she had been a lady forsooth! I micht wi' jist as muckle sense objec' to bidin' wi' him mysel'! But Is' du what I like, an' lat fowk say 'at they like, sae lang as I'm na fule i' my ain e'en!"

"I'm ower white, Mr. Gled, for you.

Ow na! ye're no that, bonny doo."

But by degrees Cosmo grew gently ashamed of himself that he had so addressed Agnes. He saw in the thing a failure in respect, a wrong to her dignity. That she had taken it so sweetly did not alter its character. Seeming at the time to himself to be going against the judgment of the world, and treating it with the contempt it always more or less deserves, he had in reality been acting in no small measure according to it! For had there not been in him a vague condescension operant all the time? Had he not been all but conscious of the feeling that his position made up for any want in his love? Had she been conventionally a lady, instead of an angel in peasant form, would he have been so ready to return her kindness with an offer of marriage? There was little conceit in supposing that some, even of higher position than his own, would have accepted the offer on lower terms; but knowing Aggie as he did, he ought not to have made it to her: she was too large and too fine for such an experiment. This he now fully understood; and had he not been brought up with her from childhood as with an elder sister, she might even now have begun to be a formidable rival to the sweet memories of Joan's ladyhood. For he saw in her that which is at the root, not only of all virtue, but of all beauty, of all grandeur, of all growth, of all attraction. Every charm--in its essence, in its development, in its embodiment, is a flower of the tree of life, whose root is the truth. I see the smile of the shallow philosopher, thinking of a certain lady to him full of charm, who has no more love for the truth than a mole for the light. But that lady's charm does not spring out of her; it has been put upon her, and she will soon destroy it. It comes of truth otherwhere, and will one day leave her naked and not lovely. The truth was in Agnes merely supreme. To have asked such a one to marry him for reasons lower than the highest was good ground for shame. Not therefore even then was he PAINFULLY ashamed, for he felt safe with Agnes, as with the elder sister that pardons everything.

It was some little time before they had any news of her; but they heard at last that she had rented Grannie's cottage from her grand-daughter, her own aunt, and was going to have a school there for young children. Cosmo was greatly pleased, for the work would give scope to some of her highest gifts and best qualities, while it would keep her within reach of possible service. Nothing however can part those who are of the true mind towards the things that ARE.

Cos...o...b..took himself heartily to study, and not only read but wrote regularly every day--no more with the design of printing, but in the hope of shaping more thoroughly and so testing more truly his contemplations and conclusions. I scorn the idea that a man cannot think without words, but Cosmo thus improved his thinking, and learned to utter accurately, that is, to say the thing he meant, and keep from saying the thing he did not mean.

The room over the kitchen, which had first in his memory been his grandmother's, then became his own, and returned to his disposal when James Gracie died, he made his study; and from it to the drawing-room, with the a.s.sistance of a village mason, excavated a pa.s.sage--for it was little less than excavation--in the wall connecting the two blocks, under the pa.s.sage in which had lain the treasure.

The main issue Grizzie's new command of money found was in a torrent of cleaning. If she could have had her way, I think she would have put up scaffolds all over the outside of the house, and scrubbed it down from chimneys to foundations.

On the opposite side of the Warlock river, the laird rented a meadow, and there Grizzie had the long disused satisfaction of seeing two cows she could call hers, the finest cows in the country, feeding with a vague satisfaction in the general order of things. The stable housed a horse after Cosmo's own heart, on which he made excursions into the country round, partly in the hope of coming upon some place not too far off where there was land to be bought.

All that was known of the change in his circ.u.mstances was that he had come into a large fortune by the death--date not mentioned--of a relative with whom his father had not for years had communication, and Cosmo never any. Lord Lick-my-loof, after repeated endeavours to get some information about this relative, was perplexed, and vaguely suspicious.

How the spending of the money thus committed to him was to change the earthly issues of his life, Cosmo had not yet learned, and was waiting for light on the matter. For a man is not bound to walk in the dark, neither must, for the sake of doing something, run the risk of doing wrong. He that believeth shall not make haste; and he that believeth not shall come no speed. He had nothing of the common mammonistic feeling of the enormous importance of money, neither felt that it laid upon him a heavier weight of duty than any other of the gifts of G.o.d. And if a poet is not bound to rush into the world with his poem, surely a rich man is not bound to rush into the world with his money. Rather set a herd of wild horses loose in a city! A man must know first how to USE his money, before he begin to spend it. And the way to use money is not so easily discovered as some would think, for it is not one of G.o.d's ready means of doing good. The rich man as such has no reason to look upon himself as specially favoured. He has reason to think himself specially tried. Jesus, loving a certain youth, did him the greatest kindness he had in his power, telling him to give his wealth to the poor, and follow him in poverty. The first question is not how to do good with money, but how to keep from doing harm with it. Whether rich or poor, a man must first of all do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with his G.o.d; then, if he be rich, G.o.d will let him know how to spend. There must be ways in which, even now, a man may give the half, or even the whole of his goods to the poor, without helping the devil. Cosmo, I repeat, was in no haste: it is not because of G.o.d's poverty that the world is so slowly redeemed. Not the most righteous expenditure of money will save it, but that of life and soul and spirit--it may be, to that, of nerve and muscle, blood and brain. All these our Lord spent--but no money. Therefore I say, that of all means for saving the world, or doing good, as it is called, money comes last in order, and far behind.

Out of the loneliness in which his father left him, grew a great peace and new strength. More real than ever was the other world to him now. His father could not have vanished like a sea-bubble on the sand! To have known a great man--perhaps I do not mean such a man as my reader may be thinking of--is to have some a.s.surance of immortality. One of the best of men said to me once that he did not feel any longing after immortality, but, when he thought of certain persons, he could not for a moment believe they had ceased. He had beheld the lovely, believed therefore in the endless.

Castle Warlock was scarcely altered in appearance. In its worst poverty it had always looked dignified. There was more life about it and freedom, but not so much happiness. The diamonds had come, but his father was gone, Aggie was gone, Mr. Simon was going, and Joan would not come! Cosmo had scarce a hope for this world; yet not the less did he await the will of The Will. What that was, time would show, for G.o.d works in time.

CHAPTER LXI.

THE THIRD HARVEST.

As the days went by, Cosmo saw his engagement to Mr. Henderson drawing near, nor had the smallest inclination to back out of it.

The farmer would have let him off at once, no doubt, but he felt, without thinking, that it would be undignified, morally speaking, to avoid, because he was now in plenty, the engagement granted by friends.h.i.+p to his need. Nor was this all, for, so doing, he would seem to allow that, driven by necessity, he had undertaken a thing unworthy, or degrading; for Cosmo would never have allowed that any degree of hunger could justify a poor man in doing a thing disgraceful to a rich man. No true man will ever ask of fellow creature, man or woman, on terms however extravagant, the doing of a thing he could not do himself without a sense of degradation.

There is no leveller like Christianity--but it levels by lifting to a lofty table-land, accessible only to humility. He only who is humble can rise, and rising lift.

In thus holding to what he had undertaken, a man of lower nature might have had respect to the example he would so give: Cosmo thought only of honourable and grateful fulfilment of his contract.

Not only would it have been a poor return for Mr. Henderson's kindness to treat his service as something beneath him now, but, worst of all, it would have been to accept enn.o.blement at the hands of Mammon, as of a power able to alter his station in G.o.d's world.

To change the spirit of one's ways because of money, is to confess onesself a born slave, a thing of outsides, a knight of Riches, with a maggot for his crest.

When the time came, therefore, Cosmo presented himself. With a look of astonishment shadowed by disappointment, the worthy farmer held out his hand.

"Laird," he said, "I didna expec' YOU!"

"What for no?" returned Cosmo. "Haena I been yer fee'd man for months!"

"Ye put me in a kin' o' a painfu' doobt, laird. Fowk tellt me ye had fa'en heir til a sicht o' siller!"

"But allooin', hoo sud that affec' my bargain wi' you Mr.

Henderson? Siller i' the pooch canna tak obligation frae the back."

"Drivin' things to the wa', nae doobt!" returned the farmer. "I micht certainly hae ta'en the law o' ye, failin' yer appearance.

But amo' freen's, that cudna be; an' 'deed, Mr. Warlock, gien a body wad be captious, michtna he say it wad hae been mair freen'ly to beg aff?"

"A bargain's a bargain," answered Cosmo; "an' to beg aff o' ane 'cause I was nae langer i' the same necessity as whan I made it, wad hae been a mere shame. Gien my father hed been wi' me, an' no weel eneuch to like me oot o' 's sicht, I wad hae beggit aff fest eneuch, but wi' no rizzon it wad hae been ill-mainnert, no to say dishonest an' oongratefu'. Gien ye hae spoken to ony ither i' my place, he s' hae the fee, an' Is' hae the wark. Lat things stan', Mr. Henderson."

"Laird!" answered the farmer, not a little moved, "there's no a man I wad raither see at my wark nor yersel'. A' o' them, men an'

women, work the better whan ye're amo' them. They wad be affront.i.t no to haud up wi' a gentleman! Sae come awa' an' walcome!--ye'll tak something afore we fa'tu?"

Cosmo accepted a jug of milk, half cream, from the hand of Elsie.

The girl was much improved, having partially unlearned a good deal of the nonsense gathered at school, and come to take a fair share with her sisters in the work of the house and farm--enlightened thereto doubtless by her admiration for Cosmo. It is not from those they marry people always learn most.

When Cosmo reached the end of the first bout, and stood to sharpen his scythe, he was startled to see, a little way off, gathering after one of the scythes, a form he could not mistake. SHE had known he would keep his troth! She did not look up, but he knew her figure and every motion of it too well to take her for another than Aggie.

That she thus exposed herself to misrepresentation, Aggie was well enough aware, but with the knowledge of how things stood between her and Cosmo, she was far above heeding the danger. Those who do the truth are raised even above defying the world. Defiance betrays a latent respect, but Aggie gave herself no more trouble about the opinion of the world than that of a lower animal. Those who are of the world may defy, but they cannot ignore it.

She had declined being a party to Cosmo's marrying his mother, but was not therefore prepared to expose him undefended to any one whatever who might wish to take him, even should she be of age un.o.bjectionable; and she knew one who would at least be hampered by no scruples arising from conscious unfitness. Agnes might well have thought it better he should marry the cottar's than the farmer's daughter! Anyhow she was resolved to keep an eye on the young woman so long as Cosmo was within her swoop. He was chivalrous and credulous, and who could tell what Elsie might not dare! Her refusal to be his wife did not deprive her of antecedent rights.

And there she was, gathering behind Cosmo, as two years ago!

The instant she was free, Aggie set out for home, not having exchanged a word with Cosmo, but intending to linger on the way in the hope of his overtaking her. The Hendersons would have had him stay the night, but he had given his man orders to wait him with his horse at a certain point on the road; and Aggie had not gone far before he got up with her.

Whatever was or had been the state of her feelings towards Cosmo, she had never mistaken his towards her; neither had she failed to see that his heart was nowise wounded by her refusal of his offer: it would have been a little comfort to her, having to be severe with herself, to see some sign of suffering in him, but she had got over much, and now was nowise annoyed at the cheery unembarra.s.sed tone in which he called out when he saw her, and turning greeted him with the same absence of constraint.

"An' sae ye're gaein' to tak the bairnies un'er yer wing, Aggie!"

said Cosmo, as they walked along. "They're lucky little things 'at'll gang to your schuil! What pat it i' yer heid?"

"Mr. Simon advised it," answered Aggie; "but I believe I pat it in his heid first, sayin' hoo little was dune for the bairnies jist at the time they war easiest to guide. Rouch wark maks the han's rouch, and rouch words maks the hert rouch."

"The haill country-side 'ill be gratefu' to ye, Aggie.--Ye'll lat me come an' see ye whiles?"

"Nane sae welcome," answered Aggie. "But wull ye be bidin' on, noo 'at ye haena him 'at's gane? Winna ye be gaein' awa', to write buiks, an' gar fowk fin' oot what's the maitter wi' them?"

"I dinna ken what I'm gaein' to du," answered Cosmo. "But for writin' buiks, I could do that better at hame nor ony ither gait, wi' a'thing min'in' me o' my father, an' you nearhan' to gie me c.o.o.nsel."

"I hae aye been yours to comman', Cosmo," replied Aggie, looking down for one moment, then immediately up again in his face.

"An' ye're no angert wi' me, Aggie?"

_"Angert!"_ repeated Aggie, and looked at him with a glow angelic in her honest, handsome face, and her eyes as true as the heavens. "It was only 'at ye didna ken what ye war aboot, an' bein' sae muckle yoonger nor mysel', I was b'un' to tak care o' ye; for a wuman as weel's a man maun be her brither's keeper. Ye see yersel' I was richt!"

"Ay was ye, Aggie," answered Cosmo, ashamed and almost vexed at having to make the confession.

He did not see the heave of Aggie's bosom, nor how she held back and broke into nothing the sigh that would have followed.

"But," she resumed, after a moment's pause, "a' la.s.ses michtna ken sae weel what was fittin' them, nor care sae muckle what was guid for you; naebody livin' can ken ye as I du! an' gien ye war to lat a la.s.s think ye cared aboot her--it micht be but as a freen', but she micht be sae ta'en' wi' ye--'at--'at maybe she micht gar ye think 'at hoo she cudna live wantin' ye--an' syne, what ye du than, Cosmo?"

It was a situation in which Cosmo had never imagined himself, and he looked at Aggie a little surprised.