CHAPTER XXVIII.

I SEE A STAR

We were still at Thrieve. The woods were yet one manifest emerald. Only the birds began to take up again their later after-summer song. It was a fair place. But--how shall I describe it?--to me there was a veil over everything. Over the river something smoked black like a chimney that will not draw aright. A grey netting of mist was flung over the trees. At times there came a thicker drift of the same slate-coloured reek, as if the pain and the sin went crying up from the ground like the blood of righteous Abel.

Even the splendours of sunset over the purple ridges of Balmaghie and the dewy clearness of sunrise welling up out of the east behind the wood-crests of Carlinwark were tached and bedabbled by that black spume, the breath as of the burning of Babylon the great, mother of abominations.

Only at one spot did the countryside about Thrieve keep its ancient sweetness, and that was up towards the little kirkyard of Balmaghie--_outside_ of which they had buried him, my babe.

There comes a wetness in these old eyes as I write, that was lacking in them forty years ago. Then I could look with scarcely more than a dry, hot twitching of the throat at the place. But now, grown old and once more verging on childhood, the tears come great and salt--though not easily as they used to do at Cour Cheverney, or at Thrieve during those ten years when I fretted waiting for that which was to bring me so much pain when I gat it.

For the rest I can hardly tell the wonderful thoughts that came into my head during these days. I had changed my chamber from the south side, where the black reek seemed to whirl and drift most thickly (though all the time I knew it was only in my head!), to the north, from which, up the splendid pathway of the broad undivided river, glancing crystal-clear, I could see the ridge, behind which was Balmaghie’s little white kirk, with the birds singing in the lilac bushes under which he lay, just outside the wall of consecration (but within God’s heavenly acre), my bairn--the Douglas who had never a name or a title when they laid him in earth.

Then at morn, at the very first breaking of it, green and infinite as if the Dawn of Dawns were indeed come, I was used to rise and look out of that northward window. Yonder, pearl-clear and unsullied amid the green, glowed His grave--yes, His. And I could not help but think of him as like That Other who had his grave in a green garden--the Sinless One who died for the sins of others.

And above, where she sat at her Son’s feet, the Mother Mary was not angry that I thought of this, but smiled and was well pleased. So that for a moment the clouds were rolled aside. The sky glowed white and blue, the Holy Virgin’s colours, and, till the darkness shut down and the eager pain banked up again in my heart, I could even put up a prayer to Mary and her Son.

To God I could not pray. For He, I knew, was going to punish James for his wrong-doing--and in that, though I could not forget, I desired to have no part. It was not that I did not forgive. For myself I did--yes, from the first. But that dear dead babe cried from the ground. And once, in the silence of the night I heard him cry, and I awoke and looked, and lo! to the north, clear and wonderful, a star!

Then I put on my clothes very quietly, and, passing on tiptoe the door where Maud slumbered, tired out with her manifold anxieties, then out by the little private door, I slipped past the sentries like a ghost till on the shingle without I found a skiff moored. I pushed across the black pool, striking the water at random, sometimes with one oar and sometimes with two, but keeping my eyes always on the star. How it shone--large and pure and gracious, like the rising of the harvest moon over the serried sheaves of corn. By and by I came to the land, or rather, it pushed itself softly against the boat. A place deep-hidden among lush meadow grasses it was. Often, and in vain, I have tried to find it since.

Dew-wet above, sponge-soft underneath it must have been, but of that I have no memory. Certain tall marish grasses I remember shaking their heads as I went by. Then came the acrid smell of bog-bean at night, of wet Queen of the Meadow also, which thrust a tassel of blond dripping fur into my face. I gathered my gown and sped northward--mine eyes on the star. I feared--oh, how I feared that it would fade before I gat there--the way was so long!

Yes, I prayed that it might not! For I thought--I seemed to feel that all was in that. If I saw the light when I reached the spot, my babe (whom they had buried unblessed by priestly hand) would see the face of God and lie on the bosom of that Other Mother, whose benediction would not be lacking. Also I thought that James, after God had reckoned with him on earth, might also be forgiven. Perhaps. At least I prayed so.

So I ran on, eager and forgetful of all, save what God was to do for me, and the babe and James--and, yes--for that poor unhappy girl also, that Magdalen, whose beauty had tempted my--no, I could not yet call him _that_--had tempted James Douglas to his fate! For such are one woman’s best thoughts of another!

Then was strength given me, not of myself, not the strength of my poor limbs, made weak by suffering; but something quite different--out of me, of divine gift, marvellous.

On and on I went, till the marshes gave way to the drier field-pastures with the starting sheep, and then, hedged with thorns and prickles, came little patches of yellowing corn. And once in a hollow I lost the light, and I fell prone on my face. But not till long afterwards did I know myself hurt. For in a moment I was up again and ran on. And lo! the light, as I came nearer, grew more bright; but, as it were, divided and scattered here and there among the gravestones.

And I heard a sound of singing as if a myriad of the heavenly host was chanting a psalm in honour of a little babe. So I ran fast and faster, lest all might vanish like a dream of the night, and be ended like the song of a bird, when, being frighted, it flies from one wood to another far away.

For this reason I grew cautious, as those who see visions must often be. I had heard of the tricks the Little People play. So I went a-tiptoe to the gable-end of the kirk, knowing I could come to no harm there. The kirkyard lay beyond. The kirk itself rose black above, as it seemed, cutting hard against the stars, making a blank in heaven. And over the rigging, lo, a soft gleaming of light from below! All the winds were still. For sure, for very sure, I was to see the angels, and die. What matter? Better so, indeed! Better for me and for the babe.

Secretly I looked, hiding my poor clogged body behind a gravestone. I remember now I was at once chill with cold and burning with fever. My gown clung wet about me. My teeth chattered. Yet for all that my blood ran hot and my heart beat fast. I was to see the angels--perhaps also--perhaps? But no, that could not be, and I did not want it to be. Maud had told me he was dead, and Maud did not lie. But if I could only see the angels blessing him, carrying his soul upwards, my little one whom men held not fit to lie within the hallowed precinct, dying unbaptized--I should be happy. It would be enough.

I looked again. And behold, the little lich-gate of the kirkyard was open! I could see many men in priestly robes come chanting, bearing great candles in their hands. One in the midst, whose apparel was most glorious, bore on his arms something small, wrapped about in white. And as he led the way into the church, priests and holy brethren followed with their tall candles--till they came to a new-made grave dug within the altar rails. And, looking through a little window, I saw how the man in the beautiful raiment, whose face was hidden, knelt with the white bundle in his arms, and how another, more simply dressed in white, with bands of gold and purple over his shoulders, read out of a book. And after a while, even as I looked, the man whose face had been hidden rose up, and lo, it was Laurence!

And I saw him lay the little white, oblong bundle in the grave, and the priest blessed it again, and sprinkled holy water, and scattered earth upon it. And even as he stood there with his hands outspread, something gave way within me, and I rushed through the door and up the aisle till I threw me, as it were, across the very grave wherein he lay--the babe who was now blessed, anointed, and baptized, mayhap against the canons of Holy Church, but of a certainty according to the desires of Him who drew the little children unto Him.

I lay stretched out before the priest wet and shivering, they tell me, though burning hot with fever. And with my mouth to the ground I cried (I have no remembrance of it)--

“_Bless me also, O Holy Ones; bless me, and the babe, with his father, and--Yes, I will say it, her who hath taken him from me!_”

* * * * * * *

They lifted me up and brought me home, to lie long in the north-looking room betwixt life and death--and of the two infinitely nearer to death--for many weeks.

And Laurence, ere he left the kirkyard, bade all the fathers and brethren keep silence, for if these things were known at Rome every man of them would lose their frocks. “But,” he added, “the God who made a man His vicegerent on the earth be my Court of Appeal whether this night I have done right or no!”

And while they were carrying me home to Thrieve, they intoned very solemnly the _Laus Deo_ and the _Gloria_. They knew not whether or no I lived, but they knew that here or hence, having seen what I had seen, a great weight would be gone from my soul.

And so, indeed, it was. For when, faint with the hand of Death scarce withdrawn from my heart, I was carried to the southward balcony to look forth, lo! the black reek (which was Sin Unforgiven) had clean gone from off the land.

All was as the soul of my babe, newly washed like my own, my little _chrisom_, with the holy oil of anointing, though late, still moist upon his brow. So that evil at least had passed away, and for a time my soul had ease.

And as I lay long, holding Maud’s hand, I asked her under my breath by what name they had called him. For a while she did not answer, and then said only, “Laurence thought it wise to call him William--because”--

Then, as she hesitated, I interrupted.

“Do not fear for me,” I cried; “as ever, Laurence did the right. Though I loved him not, William Douglas was my true husband. It is well that the babe who was another’s, dying unspotted by the world, should bear a good man’s name in that nursery where such God’s children are kept and watched and tended! I am glad indeed!”

At that she kissed me and I kissed her--for the first time for long out of love and with a full heart. And from that time forth I think I was to her even as one of her own children.