The Orphans of Glen Elder Part 14

Or, he could purchase Glen Elder, and invest the rest of his fortune for the benefit of his mother and his little cousins, and then go back to his business in India again. He thought his mother would like the first plan best; but it did not seem the best to him.

He was afraid of himself. He had never, in his youth, liked a quiet, rural life, and his manner of life for the past ten years had not been such as to prepare him to like it better. He feared that he could never settle down contented and useful in such a life; and he knew that an unwilling sacrifice would never make his mother happy. And, yet, would it be right to leave her, feeble and aged as she was? Of course his going away would be different now. He would leave her in comfortable circ.u.mstances, with no doubt about his fate, no fears as to his well-doing, to hara.s.s her. But even in such a case it would not be right to go away without her full and free consent.

It spoiled the pleasure of his walk--that and some other thoughts he had; and he sighed as he sat down to rest on a bank where he had often rested when a child.

"I can fancy us all living very happily here, if some things were different," he said at last.

"What things, Cousin Hugh?" asked Archie, in some surprise.

Hugh laughed.

"I ought to have said, 'if I were different myself,' I suppose."

"But you _are_ different," said Archie.

"Yes," said his cousin gravely, after a moment's hesitation; "but oh, lad, I have many sad things to mind, and sinful things, too. All these years cannot be blotted out nor forgotten."

"But they are past, Cousin Hugh, and forgiven, and in one sense blotted out. There is nothing of them left that need hinder you from being happy here again."

"Ah, well, that may be. G.o.d is good. But I was thinking of something else when I spoke first. I was thinking that I am not a farmer."

"But you can learn to be one. It's easy enough."

"I am afraid I should not find it easy. I am afraid I should not do justice to the place. It spoils one for a quiet life, to be knocked about in the world as I have been. And I know I could never make my mother happy if I were discontented myself; at least, if she knew of my discontent."

"She would be sure to see it. You couldn't hide it from her, if discontent was in your heart. My aunt doesn't say much, but she sees clearly. But why should you not be happy here? I can't understand it."

"No; I trust you may never be able to understand it. Archie, lad, it is one of the penalties of an evil life that it changes the nature, so that the love of pure and simple pleasures, which it drives away, has but a small chance of coming back again, even when the life is amended. It is a sad experience."

"But an evil life, Cousin Hugh! You should not say that," said Archie sorrowfully.

"Well, what would you have? A life of disobedience to one's mother, ten years of forgetfulness--no, not forgetfulness, but neglect of her.

Surely that cannot be called other than an evil life. And it bears its fruit."

There was a long pause; and then Archie said:

"Cousin Hugh, I'll tell you what I would do. I would speak to my aunt about it. If it is true that you could never settle down contented here, she will be sure to see that it is best for you to go, and she will say so. I once heard James Muir say that he knew no woman who surpa.s.sed my aunt in sense and judgment. She will be sure to see what is right, and tell you what to do."

Pleasure and pain oddly mingled in the feelings with which Hugh listened to his cousin's grave commendation of his mother's sense and judgment; but he felt that there was nothing better to be done than to tell her all that was in his heart, and he lost no time in doing so, and Archie's words were made good. She saw the situation at a glance, and told him "what to do." Much as she would have liked to have her son near her, she knew that he was too old to acquire new tastes, and too young to be content with a life of comparative inactivity. She told him so, heartily and cheerfully, not marring the effect of her words by any murmurs or repinings of her own. She only once said:

"If you could but have stayed in Scotland, Hugh, lad; for your mother is growing old."

"Who knows but it may be so arranged?" said Hugh thoughtfully. "There is a branch of our house in L--. It might be managed. But, whether or not, I have a year, perhaps two, before me yet."

But it came to pa.s.s, all the same, that before the month of May was out they were all settled at Glen Elder. Though "that weary spendthrift,"

Maxwell of Pentlands, as Mrs Stirling called him, could not break the entail on the estate of Pentlands, as for the sake of his many debts and his sinful pleasures he madly tried to do, he could dispose of the outlying farm of Glen Elder; and Hugh Blair became the purchaser of the farm and of a broad adjoining field, called the Nether Park. So he owned the land that his fathers had only leased; or, rather, his mother owned it, for it was purchased in her name, and was hers to have and to hold, or to dispose of as she pleased. His mother's comfort, Hugh said, and the welfare of his young cousins, must not be left to the risks and chances of business. They must be put beyond dependence on his uncertain life or possible failure, or he could not be quite at rest with regard to them when he should be far away.

Glen Elder had not suffered in the hands of English Smith. As a faithful servant of the owner, he had held it on favourable terms, and had hoped to hold it long. So he had done well by the land, as all the neighbours declared; though at first they had watched his new-fangled plans with jealous eyes. It was "in good heart" when it changed hands, and was looking its very best on the bright May day when they went home to it. It was a happy day to them all, though it was a sad one, too, for Hugh and his mother. But the sadness pa.s.sed away in the cheerful bustle of welcome from old friends; and it was not long before they settled down into a quiet and pleasant routine.

The coming home, and the new life opening before her, seemed for a long time strange and unreal to Lilias. She used to wake in the morning with the burden of her cottage-cares upon her, till the sight of her pleasant room, and the suns.h.i.+ne coming in through the cl.u.s.tering roses, chased her anxious thoughts away. The sense of repose that gradually grew upon her in her new home was very grateful to her; but she did not enter eagerly into the new interests and pleasures, as her brother did.

Indeed, she could do very little but be still and enjoy the rest and quiet; for, when all necessity for exertion was over, that came upon her which must have come soon at any rate: her strength quite gave way, and, for some time, anxiety on her account sobered the growing happiness of the rest.

Even her aunt did not realise till then how much beyond her strength had been the child's exertions during the winter and spring. Not that she would acknowledge herself to be ill. She was only tired, and would be herself again in a little while. But months pa.s.sed before that time came. For many a day she lay on the sofa in the long, low parlour of Glen Elder, only wis.h.i.+ng to be left in peace, smiling now and then into the anxious faces of her aunt and Archie, saying "it was so nice to be quiet and to have nothing to do."

But this pa.s.sed away. In a little while she was beguiled into the sunny garden, and before the harvest-holidays set Archie at liberty she was quite ready and able for a renewal of their rambles among the hills again.

As for Mrs Blair, the return of her son, and the coming home to Glen Elder, did not quite renew her youth; but when the burden that had bowed her down for so many years was taken away, the change in her was pleasant to see. For a long time she rejoiced with trembling over her returned wanderer; but as day after day pa.s.sed, each leaving her more a.s.sured that it was not her wayward lad that had returned to her, but a true penitent and firm believer in Jesus, a deeper peace settled down upon her long-tried spirit, and "I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He hath set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And He hath put a new song in my mouth,"

became a part of her daily thanksgiving.

As for him, if it had been the one desire of his life to atone for the sorrow he had caused her in his youth, he could not have done otherwise than he did. He made her comfort his first care. Her slightest intimation was law to him. Silently and un.o.btrusively, but constantly, did he manifest a grave and respectful tenderness towards her, till she, as well as others, could not but wonder, remembering the lad who would let nothing come between him and the gratification of his own foolish desires.

"You dinna mind your cousin Hugh, Lilias, my dear?" said Mrs Stirling to her one day. "I mind him well--the awfulest laddie for liking his own way that ever was heard tell of! You see, being the only one left to her, his mother thought of him first always, till he could hardly do otherwise than think first of himself; and a sore heart he gave her many a time. There's a wonderful difference now. It must just be that,"

added she, meditatively. "'A new heart will I give you, and a right spirit will I put within you.' Lilias, my dear, he's a changed man."

A bright colour flashed into Lilias's face, and tears started in her eyes.

"I am sure of it! We may be poor and sick and sorrowful again, but the worst of my aunt's troubles can never come back to her more."

He was very kind to his young cousins, partly because he wished to repay the love and devotion which had brightened so many of his mother's dark days, but chiefly because he soon loved them dearly for their own sakes.

Lilias he always treated with a respect and deference which, but for the gentle dignity with which his kindness was received by her, might have seemed a little out of place offered to one still such a child.

With Archie he was different. The gravity and reserve which seemed to have become habitual to Hugh Blair in his intercourse with others never showed itself to him. The frank, open nature of the lad seemed to act as a charm upon him. The perfect simplicity of his character, the earnestness with which he strove first of all to do right, filled his cousin with wonder, and oftentimes awoke within him bitter regret at the remembrance of what his own youth had been; and a living lesson did the unconscious lad become to him many a time.

No one rejoiced more heartily than did Mrs Stirling at the coming home of Hugh Blair and the consequent change of circ.u.mstances to his mother and his little cousins; but her joy was expressed in her own fas.h.i.+on.

One might have supposed that, in her opinion, some great calamity had befallen them, so dismal were her prophecies concerning them.

"It's true you have borne adversity well, and that is in a measure a preparation for the well-bearing of prosperity. But there's no telling.

The heart is deceitful, and it is no easy to carry a full cup. You'll need grace, Lilias, my dear. And you'll doubtless get it if you seek it in a right spirit." But, judging from Mrs Stirling's melancholy tones and shakings of the head, it was plain to see that she expected there would be failure somewhere.

With keen eyes she watched for some symptoms of the spoiling process in Lilias, and was slow to believe that she was not going to be disappointed in her, as she had been in so many others. But time went on, and Lilias pa.s.sed unscathed through what, in Nancy's estimation, was the severest of all ordeals. She was sent to a school "to learn accomplishments," and came home again, after two years, "not a bit set up." So Mrs Stirling came to feel at last that she might have faith in the stability of her young favourite.

"She's just the very same Lilias Elder that used to teach the bairns and go wandering over the hills with her brother; only she's blither and bonnier. She's Miss Elder of the Glen now, as I heard young Mr Graham calling her to his friend; but she's no' to call changed for all that."

And Mrs Stirling was right. Lilias was not changed. Prosperity did no unkind office for her. Those happy days developed in her no germ of selfishness. Still her first thought was for others, the first desire of her heart still was to know what was right, and to obtain grace and strength to do it. In some respects she might be changed, but in this she was the very same.

She grew taller and wore a brighter bloom on her cheeks, and she gradually outgrew the look that was older than her years; but she never lost the gentle gravity that had made her seem so different from the other children in the eyes of those who knew her in her time of many cares.

Nancy had not the same confidence in Archie. Not that she could find much fault with him; but he had never been so great a favourite with her as his sister, and his boyish indifference to her praise or blame did not, in her opinion, accord with the possession of much sense or discretion.

"And, Miss Lilias, my dear, it's no' good for a laddie like him to be made so much of," said she. "The most of the lads that I have seen put first and cared for most have, in one way or another, turned out a disappointment. Either they turned wilful, and went their own way to no good; or they turned soft, and were a vexation. And it would be a grievous thing indeed if the staff on which you lean should be made a rod to correct you, my dear."

But Lilias feared no disappointment in her brother.

"'The law of the Lord is in his heart, none of his steps shall slide,'"

she answered softly to Mrs Stirling; and even she confessed that surely he needed no other safeguard.

A great deal might be told of the happy days that followed at Glen Elder. Hugh Blair never went back to India again. He married--much to his mother's joy--one whom he had loved, and who had loved him, in the old time, before evil counsels had beguiled him from his duty and driven him from his home,--one who had never forgotten him during all those sorrowful days of waiting. Their home was at a distance; but they were often at Glen Elder, and Mrs Blair's declining days were overshadowed by no doubt as to the well-doing or the well-being of her son.

Archie went first to the high school, and then to college. The master was loth to part from his favourite pupil; but David Graham was going.