Olive Part 39

"Mercy! ye mun easy say that; why did He let the poor lad die i' the snow, then?"

And Harold's lips hesitated over those holy words "The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away."

"He should ha' takken th' owd mother, then. She's none wanted; but the dear lad--the only one left out o' six--oh, Reuben, Reuben, wunna ye never speak to your poor father again?"

He looked on the corpse fixedly for some minutes, and then a new thought seemed to strike him.

"That's not my lad--my merry little lad!--I say," he cried, starting up and catching Mr. Gwynne's arm; "I say, you parson that ought to know, where's my lad gone to?"

Harold Gwynne's head sank upon his breast: he made no answer.

Perhaps--ay, and looking at him, the thought smote Olive with a great fear--perhaps to that awful question there was no answer in his soul.

John Dent pa.s.sed him by, and came to the side of Olive Rothesay.

"Miss, folk say you're a good woman. Dun ye know aught o' these things--canna ye tell me if I shall meet my poor lad again?"

And then Olive, casting one glance at Mr. Gwynne, who remained motionless, sat down beside the childless father, and talked to him of G.o.d--not the Infinite Unknown, into whose mysteries the mightiest philosophers may pierce and find no end--but the G.o.d mercifully revealed, "Our Father which is in heaven"--He to whom the poor, the sorrowing, and the ignorant may look, and not be afraid.

Long she spoke; simply, meekly, and earnestly. Her words fell like balm; her looks lightened the gloomy house of woe. When, at length, she left it, John Dent's eyes followed her, as though she had been a visible angel of peace.

It was quite night when she and Harold wont out of the cottage. The snow had ceased falling, but it lay on every tree of the forest like a white shroud. And high above, through the opening of the branches, was seen the blue-black frosty sky, with its innumerable stars. The keen, piercing cold, the utter stirlessness, the mysterious silence, threw a sense of death--white death--over all things. It was a night when one might faintly dream what the world would be, if the infidel's boast were true, and _there were no G.o.d_.

They walked for some time in perfect silence. Troubled thoughts were careering like storm-clouds over Olive's spirit. Wonder was there, and pity, and an indefined dread. As she leaned on Mr. Gwynne's arm, she had a presentiment that in the heart whose strong beating she could almost feel, was prisoned some great secret of woe or wrong, before which she herself would stand aghast. Yet such was the nameless attraction which drew her to this man, that the more she dreaded, the more she longed to discover his mystery, whatsoever it might be. She determined to break the silence.

"Mr. Gwynne, I trust you will not think it presumption in me to have spoken as I did, instead of you; but I saw how shocked and overpowered you were, nor wondered at your silence."

He answered in the low tone of one struggling under great excitement.

"You noticed my silence, then?--that I, summoned as a clergyman to give religious consolation, had none to offer."

"Nay, you did attempt some."

"Ay, I tried to preach faith with my lips, and could not, because there was none in my heart. No, nor ever will be!"

Olive looked at him uncomprehending, but he seemed to shrink from her observation. "I am indeed truly grieved," she began to say, but he stopped her.

"Do not speak to me yet, I pray you."

She obeyed; though yearning with pity over him. Hitherto, in all their intercourse, whatever had been his kindness towards her, towards him she had continually felt a sense of restraint--even of fear. That controlling influence, which Mr. Gwynne seemed to exercise over all with whom he deigned to a.s.sociate, was heavy upon Olive Rothesay. Before him she felt more subdued than she had ever done before any one; in his presence she unconsciously measured her words and guarded her looks, as if meeting the eye of a master. And he was a master--a man born to rule over the wills of his brethren, swaying them at his lightest breath, as the wind bends the gra.s.s of the field.

But now the sceptre seemed torn from his hand--he was a king no more.

He walked along--his head drooped, his eyes fixed on the ground. And beholding him thus, there came to Olive, in the place of fear, a strong compa.s.sion, tender as strong, and pure as tender. Angel-like, it arose in her heart, ready to pierce his darkness with its s.h.i.+ning eyes--to fold around him and all his misery its sheltering wings. He was a great and learned man, and she a lowly woman; in her knowledge far beneath him, in her faith--oh! how immeasurably above!

She began very carefully. "You are not well, I fear. This painful scene has been too much, even for you. Death seems more horrible to men than to feeble women."

"Death!--do you think that I fear Death?" and he clenched his hand as though he would battle with the great Destroyer. "No!--I have met him--stood and looked at him--until my eyes were blinded, and my brain reeled. But what am I saying? Don't heed me, Miss Rothesay; don't." And he began to walk on hurriedly.

"You are ill, I am sure; and there is something that rests on your mind," said Olive, in a quiet, soft tone.

"What!--have I betrayed anything? I mean, have you anything to charge me with! Have I left any duty unfulfilled; said any words unbecoming a clergyman?" asked he with a freezing haughtiness.

"Not that I am aware. Forgive me, Mr. Gwynne, if I have trespa.s.sed beyond the bounds of our friends.h.i.+p. For we are friends--have you not often said so?"

"Yes, and with truth. I respect you, Miss Rothesay. You are no thoughtless girl, but a woman who has, I am sure, both felt and suffered! I have suffered too; therefore it is no marvel we are friends.

I am glad of it."

He seldom spoke so frankly, and never had done what he now did--of his own accord, to take and clasp her hand with a friendly air of confidence. Long after the pressure pa.s.sed from Olive's fingers, its remembrance lingered in her heart. They walked on a little farther; and then he said, not without some slight agitation,

"Miss Rothesay, if you are indeed my friend, listen to one request I make;--that you will not say anything, think anything, of whatever part of my conduct this day may have seemed strange to you. I know not what fate it is that has thus placed you, a year ago a perfect stranger, in a position which forces me to speak to you thus. Still less can I tell what there is in you which draws from me much that no human being has ever drawn before. Accept this acknowledgment, and pardon me."

"Nay, what have I to pardon? Oh, Mr. Gwynne, if I might be indeed your friend--if I could but do you any good!"

"You do good to _me?_" he muttered bitterly. "Why, we are as far apart as earth from heaven, nay, as heaven from h.e.l.l; that is if there be----.

Madman that I am! Miss Rothesay, do not listen to me. Why do you lead me on to speak thus?"

"Indeed, I do not comprehend you. Believe me, Mr. Gwynne, I know very well the difference between us. I am an unlearned woman, and you"----

"Ay, tell me what I am--that is, what you think I am.

"A wise and good man; but yet one in whom great intellect may at times overpower that simple Faith, which is above all knowledge; that Love, which, as said the great apostle of our Church"----

"Silence!" His deep voice rose and fell, like the sound of a breaking wave. Then he stopped, turned full upon her, and said, in a fierce, keen, whisper, "Would you learn the truth? You shall! Know, then, that I believe in none of these things I teach--I am an infidel!"

Olive's arm fell from him.

"Do you shrink from me, then? Good and pious woman, do you think I am Satan standing by your side?"

"Oh, no, no!" She made an effort to restrain herself; it failed, and she burst into tears.

Harold looked at her.

"Meek and gentle soul! It would, perhaps, have been good for me had Olive Rothesay been born my sister."

"I would I had--I would I had! But, oh! this is awful to hear. You, an unbeliever--you, who all these years have been a minister at the altar--what a fearful thing!"

"You say right--it is fearful. Think now what my life is, and has been.

One long lie--a lie to man and to G.o.d. For I do believe so far,"

he added, solemnly; "I believe in the one ruling Spirit of the universe--unknown, unapproachable. None but a madman would deny the existence of a G.o.d."

He ceased, and looked upwards with his piercing eyes--piercing, yet full of restless sorrow. Then he approached his companion.

"Shall we walk on, or do you utterly renounce me?" said he, with a touching, sad humility.

"Renounce you!"

"Ah! you would not, could you know all I have endured. To me, earth has been a h.e.l.l--not the place of flames and torments of which your divines prate, but the true h.e.l.l--that of the conscience and the soul. I, too, a man whose whole nature was athirst for truth. I sought it first among its professors; there I found that they who, too idle or too weak to demonstrate their creed, took it upon trust, did what their fathers did, believed what their fathers believed--were accounted orthodox and pious men; while those who, in their earnest eager youth, dared--not as yet to doubt, but meekly to ask a reason for their faith--they were at once condemned as impious. But I pain you: shall I go on, or cease?"

"Go on."