The Elect Lady Part 12

"I beggit for a play-day. I want.i.t to see An'rew."

"Eh, la.s.s! I'm feart for ye! Ye maunna set yer hert sae hie! An'rew's the best o' men, but a la.s.s canna hae a man til hersel' jist 'cause he's the best man i' the warl'!"

"What mean ye by that, mother?" said Dawtie, looking a little scared.

"Am I no' to lo'e An'rew, 'cause he's 'maist as guid's the Lord wad hae him? Wad ye hae me hate him for't? Has na he taught me to lo'e G.o.d--to lo'e Him better nor father, mither, An'rew, or onybody? I _wull_ lo'e An'rew! What can ye mean, mother?"

"What I mean, Dawtie, is, that ye mamma think because ye lo'e him ye maun hae him; ye maunna think ye canna du wantin' An'rew!"

"It's true, mother, I kenna what I should do wantin' An'rew! Is na he aye shovin' the door o' the kingdom a wee wider to lat me see in the better? It's little ferly (_marvel_) I lo'e him! But as to wantin'him for my ain man, as ye hae my father!--mother, I wad be ashamet o' mysel'

to think o' ony sic a thing!--clean affront.i.t wi' mysel' I wad be!"

"Weel, weel, bairn! Ye was aye a wise like la.s.s, an' I maun lippen til ye! Only luik to yer hert."

"As for no' lo'ein' him, mither--me that canna luik at a blin' kittlin'

ohn lo'ed it!--lo, mither! G.o.d made me sae, an didna mean me no' to lo'e An'rew!"

"Andrew!" she repeated, as if the word meant the perfection of earth's worthiest rendering the idea of appropriation too absurd.

Silence followed, but the mother was brooding.

"Ye maun bethink ye, la.s.s, hoo far he's abune ye!" she said at length.

As the son of the farmer on whose land her husband was a cotter, Andrew seemed to her what the laird seemed to old John Ingram, and what the earl seemed to the laird, though the laird's family was ancient when the earl's had not been heard of. But Dawtie understood Andrew better than did her mother.

"You and me sees him far abune, mother, but Andrew himsel' never thinks o' nae sic things. He's sae used to luikin' up, he's forgotten to luik doon. He bauds his lan' frae a higher than the laird, or the yerl himsel'!"

The mother was silent. She was faithful and true, but, fed on the dried fish of logic and system and Roman legalism, she could not follow the simplicities of her daughter's religion, who trusted neither in notions about him, nor even in what he had done, but in the live Christ himself whom she loved and obeyed.

"If Andrew wanted to marry me," Dawtie went on, jealous for the divine liberty of her teacher, "which never cam intil's heid--na, no ance--the same bein' ta'en up wi' far ither things, it wouldna be because I was but a cotter la.s.s that he wouldna tak his ain gait! But the morn's the Sabbath day, and we'll hae a walk thegither."

"I dinna a'thegither like thae walks upo' the Sabbath day," said the mother.

"Jesus walkit on the Sabbath the same as ony ither day, mother!"

"Weel, but He kenned what He was aboot!"

"And sae do I, mother! I ken His wull!"

"He had aye something on han' fit to be dune o' the Sabbath!"

"And so hae I the day, mother. If I was to du onything no fit i' this His warl', luikin' oot o' the e'en He gae me, wi' the han's an' feet He gae me, I wad jist deserve to be nippit oot at ance, or sent intil the ooter mirk (_darkness_)!"

"There's a mony maun fare ill then, la.s.s!"

"I'm sayin' only for mysel'. I ken nane sae to blame as I would be mysel'."

"Is na that makin' yersel' oot better nor ither fowk, la.s.s?"

"Gien I said I thoucht onything worth doin' but the wull o' G.o.d, I wad be a leear; gien I say man or woman has naething ither to do i' this warl' or the neist, I say it believin' ilkane o' them maun come til't at the lang last. Feow sees't yet, but the time's comin' when ilkabody will be as sure o' 't as I am. What won'er is't that I say't, wi' Jesus tellin' me the same frae mornin' to nicht!"

"La.s.s, la.s.s, I fear me, ye'll gang oot o' yer min'!"

"It 'll be intil the mind o' Christ, then, mother! I dinna care for my ain min'. I hae nane o' my ain, an' will stick to His. Gien I dinna mak His mine, and stick til't, I'm lost! Noo, mother, I'll set the things, and run ower to the hoose, and lat An'rew ken I'm here!"

"As ye wull, la.s.s! ye'r ayont me! I s' say naething anent a willfu'

woman, for ye've been aye a guid dochter. I trust I hae risen to houp the Lord winna be disappoint.i.t in ye."

Dawtie found Andrew in the stable, suppering his horses, told him she had something to talk to him about, and asked if he would let her go with him in his walk the next day. Andrew was delighted to see her, but he did not say so; and she was back before her mother had taken the milk from the press. In a few minutes her father appeared, and welcomed her with a sober joy. As they eat their supper, he could not keep his eyes off her, she sat looking so well and nice and trim. He was a good-looking, work-worn man, his hands absolutely h.o.r.n.y with labor. But inside many such h.o.r.n.y husks are ripening beautiful kingdom hands, for the time when "dear welcome Death" will loose and let us go from the grave-clothes of the body that bind some of us even hand and foot.

Rugged father and withered mother were beautiful in the eyes of Dawtie, and she and G.o.d saw them better than any other. Good, endless good was on the way to them all! It was so pleasant to be waiting for the best of all good things.

CHAPTER XVI.

ANDREW AND DAWTIE.

Dawtie slept in peace and happy dreams till the next morning, when she was up almost with the sun, and out in his low clear light. For the sun was strong again; the red labor and weariness were gone from his s.h.i.+ning face. Everything about her seemed to know G.o.d, or at least to have had a moment's gaze upon Him. How else could everything look so content, hopeful and happy. It is the man who will not fall in with the Father's bliss to whom the world seems soulless and dull. Dawtie was at peace because she desired nothing but what she knew He was best pleased to give her. Even had she cherished for Andrew the kind of love her mother feared, her Lord's will would have been her comfort and strength. If any one say: "Then she could not know what love is!" I answer: "That person does not know what the better love is that lifts the being into such a serene air that it can fast from many things and yet be blessed beyond what any other granted desire could make it." The scent of the sweet-pease growing against the turf wall entered Dawtie's soul like a breath from the fields of heaven, where the children made merry with the angels, the merriest of playfellows, and the winds and waters, and all the living things, and all the things half alive, all the flowers and all the creatures, were at their sportive call; where the little ones had babies to play with, and did not hurt them, and where dolls were neither loved nor missed, being never thought of. Suchlike were the girl's imaginings as her thoughts went straying, inventing, discovering.

She did not fear the Father would be angry with her for being His child, and playing at creation. Who, indeed, but one that in loving heart can _make_, can rightly love the making of the Maker!

When they had had their breakfast, and the old people were ready for church--where they would listen a little, sleep a little, sing heartily, and hear nothing to wake hunger, joy or aspiration, Dawtie put a piece of oat-cake in her pocket, and went to join Andrew where they had made their tryst and where she found him waiting--at his length in a bush of heather, with Henry Vaughan's "Silex Scintillans," drawing from it "bright shoots of everlastingness" for his Sabbath day's delight. He read one or two of the poems to Dawtie, who was pleased but not astonished--she was never astonished at anything; she had nothing in her to make anything beautiful by contrast; her mind was of beauty itself, and anything beautiful was to her but in the order and law of things--what was to be expected. Nothing struck her because of its rarity; the rare was at home in her country, and she was at home with it. When, for instance, he read: "Father of lights, what sunny seeds,"

she took it up at once and understood it, felt that the good man had said the thing that was to be said, and loved him for it. She was not surprised to hear that the prayer was more than two hundred years old; were there not millions of years in front? why should it be wonderful that a few years behind men should have thought and felt as she did, and been able to say it as she never could! Had she not always loved the little c.o.c.ks, and watched them learning to crow?

"But, An'rew," she said at length, "I want to tell ye something that's troublin' me; then ye can learn me what ye like."

"Tell on, Dawtie," said Andrew; and she began.

"Ae nicht aboot a fornight ago, I couldna sleep. I drave a' the sheep I could gether i' my brain, ower ae stile efter anither, but the sleep stack to the woo' o' them, an' ilk ane took o' 't awa' wi' him. I wadna hae tried, but that I had to be up ear', and I was feared I wad sleep in."

For the sake of my more polished readers--I do not say more _refined_, for polish and refinement may be worlds apart--I will give the rest in modern English.

"So I got up, and thought to sweep and dust the hall and the stairs; then if, when I lay down again, I should sleep too long, there would be a part of the day's work done! You know, Andrew, what the house is like; at the top of the stair that begins directly you enter the house, there is a big irregular place, bigger than the floor of your barn, laid with flags. It is just as if all the different parts of the house had been built at different times round about it, and then it was itself roofed in by an after-thought. That's what we call _the hall_. The spare room opens on the left at the top of the stair, and to the right, across the hall, beyond the swell of the short thick tower you see the half of outside, is the door of the study. It is all round with books--some of them, mistress says, worth their weight in gold, they are so scarce. But the master trusts me to dust them. He used to do it himself; but now that he is getting old, he does not like the trouble, and it makes him asthmatic. He says books more need dusting than anything else, but are in more danger of being hurt by it, and it makes him nervous to see me touch them. I have known him stand an hour watching me while I dusted, looking all the time as if he had just taken a dose of medicine. So I often do a few books at a time, as I can, when he is not in the way to be worried with it. But he always knows where I have been with my duster and long-haired brush. And now it came across me that I had better dust some books first of all, as it was a good chance, he being sound asleep.

So I lighted my lamp, went straight to the study, and began where I last left off.

"As I was dusting, one of the books I came to looked so new and different from the rest that I opened it to see what it was like inside.

It was full of pictures of mugs, and gold and silver jugs and cups--some of them plain and some colored; and one of the colored ones was so beautiful that I stood and looked at it. It was a gold cup, I suppose, for it was yellow; and all round the edge, and on the sides, it was set with stones, like the stones in mistress's rings, only much bigger. They were blue and red and green and yellow, and more colors than I can remember. The book said it was made by somebody, but I forget his name.

It was a long name. The first part of it began with a _B_, and the second with a _C_, I remember that much. It was like _Benjamin_, but it wasn't _Benjamin_. I put it back in its place, thinking I would ask the master whether there really were such beautiful things, and took down the next. Now whether that had been pa.s.sed over between two batches I don't know, but it was so dusty that before I would touch another I gave the duster a shake, and the wind of it blew the lamp out I took it up to take it to the kitchen and kindle it again, when, to my astonishment, I saw a light under the door of a press which was always locked, and where master said he kept his most precious books. 'How strange!' I thought; 'a light inside a locked cupboard!' Then I remembered how in one place where I had been there was, in a room over the stable, a press whose door had no fastening except a bolt on the inside, which set me thinking, and some terrible things came to me that made me remember it.

So now I said to myself: 'There's some one in there, after master's books!' It was not a likely thing, but the night is the time for fancies, and in the night you don't know what is likely and what is not.

One thing, however, was clear--I ought to find out what the light meant.

Fearful things darted one after the other through my head as I went to the door, but there was one thing I dared not do, and that was to leave it unopened. So I opened it as softly as I could, in terror lest the thief should hear my heart beating. When I could peep in what do you think I saw? I could not believe my eyes! There was a great big room! I rubbed my eyes, and stared; and rubbed them again and stared--thinking to rub it away; but there it was, a big odd-shaped room, part of it with round sides, and in the middle of the room a table, and on the table a lamp, burning as I had never seen lamp burn, and master at the table with his back to me. I was so astonished I forgot that I had no business there, and ought to go away. I stood like an idiot, mazed and lost. And you will not wonder when I tell you that the laird was holding up to the light, between his two hands, the very cup I had been looking at in the book, the stones of it flas.h.i.+ng all the colors of the rainbow. I should think it a dream, if I did not _know_ it was not. I do not believe I made any noise, for I could not move, but he started up with a cry to G.o.d to preserve him, set the cup on the table, threw something over it, caught up a wicked-looking knife, and turned round. His face was like that of a corpse, and I could see him tremble. I stood steady; it was no time then to turn away. I supposed he expected to see a robber, and would be glad when he discovered it was only me; but when he did his fear changed to anger, and he came at me. His eyes were flaming, and he looked as if he would kill me. I was not frightened--poor old man, I was able for him any day!--but I was afraid of hurting him. So I closed the door quickly, and went softly to my own room, where I stood a long time in the dark, listening, but heard nothing more. What am I to do, Andrew?"

"I don't know that you have to do anything. You have one thing not to do, that is--tell anybody what you have seen."

"I was forced to tell _you_ because I did not know what to do. It makes me _so_ sorry!"

"It was no fault of yours. You acted to the best of your knowledge, and could not help what came of it. Perhaps nothing more will come. Leave the thing alone, and if he say anything tell him how it happened."

"But, Andrew, I don't think you see what it is that troubles me. I am afraid my master is a miser. The mistress and he take their meals, like poor people, in the kitchen. That must be the dining-room of the house!--and though my eyes were tethered to the flas.h.i.+ng cup, I could not help seeing it was full of strange and beautiful things. Among them, I knew, by pictures I had seen, the armor of knights, when they fought on their horses' backs. Before people had money they must have misered other things. Some girls miser their clothes, and never go decent!"