Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice. Oliphant Margaret

I am maistly inclined to think no, Miss Anne, for ye see the bairn disna greet after her the way she did the now, when ye asked her wha came hame wi’ her; and the leddy hersel, though she beggit me to be careful o’ the bairn, did not keep her in her sight till the last moment, as a mother would have done; and when she went by the Mill, Robert says – for he was watching – that she never stopped to look back; sae I think she may have been a friend further off, Miss Anne, but she couldna be Lilie’s mother.”

      “Strange!” said Anne, “that any friend, above all a mother should send away a child so interesting!”

      “Ay, Miss Anne,” said Mrs. Melder; “but the like o’ you disna ken. There are bitterer things in this world than even grief. – One canna tell. It may be a shame and a disgrace to some decent family, that that wee thing, pleasant as she is, has ever drawn breath – and the lady may be some kin of the mother’s, bringing it away out o’ the sight o’ kent folk and friends. The like of that is ower common. Eh, pity me! there’s nae counting the wiles o’ the enemy! There’s Strathoran, ye see, and the gentlemen that’s in’t playing at their cartes and their dice, they tell me, on the very Sabbath day itsel! Is’t no enough to bring a judgment on the country-side? If auld Strathoran – honest man – could but look down into his ain house now, I canna think but what it would make his heart sair – even yonder. He was a guid man, auld Strathoran, though he did put Mr. Bairnsfather into the parish.”

      “Was that wrong, Mrs. Melder?” said Anne.

      “The Apostle says we’re no to speak evil o’ the ruler o’ our people,” said Mrs. Melder; “but, eh, Miss Anne, he’s wersh and unprofitable. When I was in my trouble and sorrow (and who can tell how dark the earth is, and a’thing in’t, when one is bereaved o’ their first-born – their only lamb!) Robert brought the minister, thinking he could speak a word o’ comfort to me; and what think ye he said, Miss Anne? No that I was to look to my Lord that had gathered my lamb to his ain bosom, out of a’ the ills o’ this world, but that I was to be reasonable and calm, and bear the trouble wi’ fortitude, because it couldna be helpit. That was a’ the comfort he had to speak to a distracted woman, whose only bairn was in its grave! But he never had ony little ones himsel.”

      “And you do not come to the Church, now?” said Anne, holding out her hand, as Lilie descended from the table, and came to her side again.

      “Na; we were once gaun to the Meeting, Robert and me, for the Seceder minister preaches guid doctrine, but we couldna think to leave the Kirk. My father was an elder for twenty year – sae we aye waited on till Mr. Lumsden came to Portoran. Eh, Miss Anne, he’s a grand man! They say there’s no the like o’ him in the haill Presbytery!”

      “What is this, Lilie?” cried Anne.

      Lilie had brought her new “Shorter Catechism,” that much-prized text-book of Presbyterian Scotland, to point out the lessons which she was to repeat to Robert Melder, on the Sabbath afternoon, according to the venerable and excellent custom of such religious humble households; and insisted upon repeating her former “questions” and the first Psalm she had learnt in her new language.

      Anne took the book, well pleased, and listened, while Lilie repeated that beautiful proposition in which all Scotland for centuries has learned to define the chief end of man, and then, with some slight stammering and uncertainty, went on:

      “That man hath perfect blessedness,

      Who walketh not astray.”

      The first verse was repeated, and Lilie stayed to remember the second.

      “Eh,” cried Mrs. Melder, “hasna she come uncommon fast on? but I wish ye would speak to Jacky Morison, Miss Anne, she’s learning the bairn nonsense ballants and – ”

      “He shall be like a tree that grows,

      Near planted by a river,”

      burst out Lilie triumphantly.

      “Which in his season yields his fruit,

      And his leaf fadeth never.

      And all he doth shall prosper well – ”

      The child paused – accomplished the next three lines with prompting, and then made a stop.

      “Lilie no mind now – Lilie show you the tree.”

      Anne suffered herself to be drawn out – the tree which Lilie fancied must be the one meant in the Psalm, was an oak which stood upon a swelling hillock close by the Oran. When they came near, the child’s wandering attention was caught by some carving on the rude and gnarled trunk.

      “What’s that?” she asked.

      Anne read it, wonderingly:

“Norman R. R. Marion L.”

      Beneath were two longer lines:

      “Like autumn leaves upon the forest ways,

      The gentle hours fall soft, the brightest days

      Fade from our sight.”

      and a date. The carvings were near the root, and might have been done by some one sitting on the grassy bank below. Anne had some difficulty in deciphering them, and when she had led her little charge home, returned alone to trace the moss-grown characters again. The date was seventeen years before – Norman R. R. Could it be possible that some other bore that name – or was it indeed a record of some bygone pleasant musing of her unhappy brother’s, before name, and fame, and fortune were lost in that dark crime – before the mark of Cain was sealed upon his brow.

      And were there yet greater depths in this calamity than she knew, and more sufferers; the Marion who shared his happier thoughts – who was she? or how had Norman’s blight, so much more dreadful than death, fallen upon her?

      The dusky December weeks passed on, and, on the last night of the year, a tall man, closely enveloped in a plaid, walked softly up the dark avenue towards the house of Strathoran. He seemed to know its turns and windings well, as keeping under covert of the thickest trees, he hastily approached the house; – once near it, he crossed the path quickly to gain the obscurity of its shadow, and then walked round it several times without manifesting any desire of entering. It was a very dreary night – the ground was thoroughly soaked with recent rains, and heavy clouds drifted in dark masses over the sky, of whose dull leaden surface, and wading afflicted moon you could see occasional glimpses, as these gloomy hosts of vapors were parted by the wind. A fitful glance of the moon fell now and then upon the stranger’s face. It was pale and resolute, and rigid, like the face of one undergoing some terrible surgical operation, to endure which manfully his every nerve was strained. He paused at last opposite a brilliant window, and retreating backward, raised himself by aid of a tree, so that he could look in. Through the closed curtains he could see a party of gentlemen sitting at their wine – the sound of their laughter, and gay voices, reached him on his watch. With keen eyes he surveyed the unconscious revellers, marked every face, took in, as it seemed, every particular of the scene, and then descending, took his way again through the solitary avenue, and turning as before into a side path, reached the highway unseen. Onward he went, walking very quickly for full two dreary miles, and arrived at last not at any dwelling of man, but at a solitary graveyard, still and solemn, lying upon Oranside, in the midst of which rose the ruined walls of an ancient chapel, moss-grown, and clad with clinging ivy. – The alarm which called forth the parishioners of more southern districts, night after night, to watch their dead, had not reached the distant stillness of Strathoran, and the stranger entered unmolested and unseen. He directed his steps to the chapel, climbed the broken stair, and entered the small unroofed apartment, with its ruined walls, and trailing ivy, and floor of lettered flags, bearing upon them the names of those who slept below – for this was the burial-place of the long-descended Sutherlands of Strathoran. Another uncertain glance of the wan moon directed him to a marble tablet in the wall, by the side of which he stood long in the dreary silence, motionless and still, himself like some dark statue, mocking the dead with empty honor. Hugh Sutherland and Isabel his wife, lay underneath the watcher’s feet; and the son to whom they had left so fair a heritage, and who had visited their grave