An Orkney Maid Part 30

"I like the wanting of them. They looked very womanish. I'm a deal more purpose-like without them. Then I went to a first-cla.s.s tailor-man and he fit me out with the suit I'm wearing. He said it was 'the correct thing for land or water.' What dost thou think of it?"

"Nothing could be more becoming to thee."

"Nay then, I got a Sabbath Day suit that shames this one. And I bought a church hat and a soft hat that beats all, and kid gloves, and a good walking stick with a fancy k.n.o.b."

"Thou art not needing a walking stick for twenty years yet."

"Well then, the English gentlemen always carries a walking stick. I think they wouldn't know the way they were going without one. At last, I went to the shoemakers, and he made me take off my 'Wellingtons.' He said no one wore them now, and he shod me, as thou sees, very comfortably. I like the change."

Then they heard Thora calling them, and Ragnor taking Rahal's hand hastened to answer the call. She was standing at the foot of the stairway, and her father kissed her and as he did so whispered--"All is well, dear one. After dinner, I will tell thee." Then he took her hand, and the three in one went together to the round table, set so pleasantly near to the comfortable fireside. Standing there, hand-clasped, the master said those few words of adoration and grat.i.tude that turned the white-spread board into a household altar.

Dinner was on the table and its delicious odours filled the room and quickly set Ragnor talking.

"I will tell you now, what I saw in London," he said. "Ian is a story good enough to keep until after dinner. I saw him sail away from Spithead, and he went full of hope and pluck and sure of success. Then I took the first train back to London. I got lodgings in a nice little hotel in Norfolk Street, just off the Strand, and London was calling me all night long."

"Thou could not see much, Father, in one week," said Thora.

"I saw the Queen and the Houses of Parliament, and I saw the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey and the Crystal Palace. And I have heard an oratorio, with a chorus of five hundred voices and Sims Reeves as soloist. I have been to Drury Lane, and the Strand Theatres, to a big picture gallery, and a hippodrome. My dear ones, the end of one pleasure was just the beginning of another; in one week, I have lived fifty years."

Any one can understand how a new flavour was added to the food they were eating by such conversation. Not all the sauces in Christendom could have made it so piquant and appetizing. Ragnor carved and ate and talked, and Rahal and Thora listened and laughed and asked endless questions, and when the mind enters into a meal, it not only prolongs, it also sweetens and brightens it. I suppose there may be in every life two or three festivals, that stand out from all others--small, unlooked-for meetings, perhaps--where love, hope, wonder and happy looking-forward, made the food taste as if it had been cooked in Paradise. Where, at least for a few hours, a mortal might feel that man had been made only a little lower than the angels.

Now, if any of my readers have such a memory, let them close the book, shut their eyes and live it over again. It was probably a foretaste of a future existence, where we shall have faculties capable of fuller and higher pleasures; faculties that without doubt "will be satisfied." For in all hearts that have suffered, there must abide the conviction that the Future holds Compensation, not Punishment.

But without forecast or remembrance, the Ragnors that night enjoyed their highly mentalised meal, and after it was over and the table set backward, and the white hearth brushed free of ashes, they drew around the fire, and Ragnor laid down his pipe, and said:

"I left London last Monday, and I was in Edinburgh until Wednesday morning. On Tuesday I called on Dr. Macrae. I had a letter to give him from Ian."

"Why should Ian have written to him?" asked Rahal, in a tone of disapproval.

"Because Ian has a good heart, he wrote to his father. I read the letter. It was all right."

"What then did he say to him?"

"Well, Rahal, he told his father that he was leaving for the front, and he wished to leave with his forgiveness and blessing, if he would give it to him. He said that he was sure that in their life-long dispute he must often have been in the wrong, and he asked forgiveness for all such lapses of his duty. He told his father that he had a clear plan of success before him, but said that in all cases--fortunate or unfortunate--he would always remember the name he bore and do nothing to bring it shame or dishonour. A very good, brave letter, dear ones. I give Ian credit for it."

"Did thou advise him to write it?" asked Rahal.

"No, it sprang from his own heart."

"Thou should not have sanctioned it."

"Ian did right, Rahal. I did right to sanction it."

"Father, if Ian has a clear plan of success before him, what is it? He ought to have told us."

"He thought it out while we were at sea, he asked me to explain the matter to you. It is, indeed, a plan so simple and manifest, that I wonder we did not propose it at the very first. You must recollect that Ian was in the employ of Dr. Finlay of Edinburgh for three years and a half, and that during that period he acquired both a large amount of medical knowledge and also of medical experience. Now we all know that Ian has a special gift for this science, especially for its surgical side, and he is not going to the trenches or the cavalry, he is going to offer himself to the Surgical and Medical Corps. He will go to the battlefield, carry off the wounded, give them first help, or see them to the hospital. In this way he will be doing constant good to others and yet be forwarding the career which is to make his future happy and honourable."

"Then Ian has decided to be a surgeon, Father?"

"Yes, and I can tell thee, Thora, he has not set himself a task beyond his power. I think very highly of Ian, no one could help doing so; and see here, Thora! I have a letter in my pocket for thee! He gave it to me as I bid him good-bye at Spithead."

"I am so happy, Father! So happy!"

"Thou hast good reason to be happy. We shall all be proud of Ian in good time."

"Did thou give Ian's letter to his father's hands, or did thou mail it, Coll?"

"I gave it to him, personally."

"What was thy first impression of him?"

"He gave me first of all an ecclesiastical impression. I just naturally looked for a gown or surplice. He wanted something without one. He met me coldly but courteously, and taking Ian's letter from me, placed it deliberately upon a pile of letters lying on his desk. I said, 'It is from thy son, Doctor, perhaps thou had better read it at once. It is a good letter, sir, read it.'

"He bowed, and asked if Ian was with me. I said, 'No, sir, he is on his way to Scutari.' Then he was silent. After a few moments he asked me if I had been in Edinburgh during the past Sabbath. 'You should have been here,' he added, 'then you could have heard the great Dr. Chalmers preach.' I told him that I had spent that never-to-be-forgotten Sabbath under the blessed dome of St. Paul's in London. I said something about the transcending beauty of the wonderful music of the cathedral service, and spoke with delight of the majestic nave, filled with mediaeval rush-bottomed chairs for the wors.h.i.+ppers, and I told him how much more fitting they were in the House of G.o.d than pews." And Ragnor uttered the last word with a new-found emphasis. "He asked, quite scornfully, in what sense I found them more fitting, and I answered rather warmly--'Why, sir, sitting together in chairs, we felt so much more at home. We were like one great family in our Father's house.'"

"Are the chairs rented?" asked Rahal.

"Rented!" cried Ragnor scornfully. "No, indeed! There are no dear chairs and no cheap chairs, all are equal and all are free. I never felt so like wors.h.i.+pping in a church before. The religious spirit had free way in our midst."

"What did Macrae say?"

"He said, he supposed the rush chairs were an 'Armenian innovation'; and I answered, 'The pews, sir, they are the innovation.'"

"Did thou have any argument with him? I have often heard Ian say he plunged into religious argument with every one he met."

"Well, Rahal, I don't know how it happened, but I quickly found myself in a good atmosphere of contradictions. I do not remember either what I had been saying, but I heard him distinctly a.s.sert, that 'it was the Armenians who had described the Calvinists, and they had not wasted their opportunities.' Then I found myself telling him that Armenianism had ruled the religious world ever since the birth of Christianity; but that Calvinism was a thing of yesterday, a mere Geneva opinion.

Rahal, the man has a dogma for a soul, and yet through this hard veil, I could see that he was full of a longing for love; but he has not found out the way to love, his heart is ice-bound. He made me say things I did not want to say, he stirred my soul round and round until it boiled over, and then the words would come. Really, Rahal, I did not know the words were in my mind, till his aggravating questions made me say them."

"What words? Art thou troubled about them?"

"A little. He was talking of faith and doubt, especially as it referred to the Bible, and I listened until I could bear it no longer.

He was asking what proof there was for this, and that, and the other, and as I said, he got me stirred up beyond myself and I told him I cared nothing about proofs. I said proofs were for sceptics and not for good men who _knew_ in whom they had believed."

"Well then, Coll, that was enough, was it not?"

"Not for Macrae. He said immediately, 'Suppose there was no divine authority for the scheme of morals and divinity laid down in this Book,' and he laid his hand reverently on the Bible, 'where should we be?' And I told him, we should be just where we were, because G.o.d's commands were written on every conscience and that these commands would stand firm even if creeds became dust, and Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul, all failed and pa.s.sed away. 'Power of G.o.d!' I cried, as I struck the table with my fist, 'it takes G.o.d's tireless, patient, eternal love to put up with puny men, always doubting Him. I believe in G.o.d the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth!' I said, 'and I want no proofs about Him in whom I believe.' By this time, Rahal, he had me on fire. I was ready to deny anything he a.s.serted, especially about h.e.l.l, for thou knows, Rahal, that there are h.e.l.ls in this world and no worse needed. So when he asked if I believed in the Calvinistic idea of h.e.l.l, I answered, 'I deny it! My soul denies it--utterly!' I reminded him that G.o.d spoke to Dives in h.e.l.l and called him son and that Dives, even there, clung to the fatherhood of G.o.d. And I told him this world was a h.e.l.l to those who deserved h.e.l.l, and a place of much trial to most men and women, and I thought it was poor comfort to preach to such, that the next world was worse. There now! I have told you enough. He asked me to lunch with him, and I did; and I told him as we ate, what a fine fellow Ian was, and he listened and was silent."

"Then you saw Ian's mother and sister?" asked Thora.

"No, I did not. They had gone for the winter to the Bridge of Allan.

Mrs. Macrae is sick, her husband seemed unhappy about her."

Rahal hoped now that her home would settle itself into its usual calm, methodical order. She strove to give to every hour its long accustomed duty, and to infuse an atmosphere of rest and of "use and wont" into every day's affairs. It was impossible. The master of the house had suffered a world change. He had tasted of strange pleasures and enthusiasms, and was secretly planning a life totally at variance with his long accustomed routine and responsibilities. He did not speak of the things in his heart but nevertheless they escaped him.

Very soon he began to have much more regular communication with his sons in Shetland, and finally he told Rahal that he intended taking his son Robert into partners.h.i.+p. Such changes grew slowly in Ragnor's mind, and much more slowly in practice, but Rahal knew that they were steadily working to some ultimate, and already definite and determined end in her husband's will.

The absent also exerted a far greater power upon the home than any one believed. Ian's letters came with persistent regularity, and the influence of one was hardly spent, when another arrived of quite a different character. Ian was rapidly realizing his hopes. He had been gladly taken into a surgical corps, under the charge of a Doctor Frazer, and his life was a continual drama of stirring events.

Generally he wrote between actions, and then he described the gallant young men resting on the slopes of the beleaguered hill, with their weapons at their finger tips, but always cheerful. Sometimes he spoke of them under terrible fire in their life-or-death push forward, followed by the surgeons and stretcher-bearers. Sometimes, he had been to the trenches to dress a wound that would not stop bleeding, but always he wondered at seeing the resolute grit and calmness of these young men, who had been the dandies in London drawing-rooms a year ago and who were now smoking placidly in the trenches at Redan.

"What is it?" he asked an old surgeon, on whom he was waiting. "Is it recklessness?"