CHAPTER IV.

Touch the chords gently-- Those strings are heart-strings, and the sounds they utter-- Be silent when you hear them--are the groanings Of uttermost pain, the sighings of great sorrow, Voices from out the depths.--ANON.

About twelve or thirteen years before the date of our last chapters, a young man from Glasgow, with his wife and one child, came as lodgers to a humble road-side cottage not far from the town of Fendie, and very near the Waterside. Walter Buchanan was an invalid. A delicate, sensitive man by nature, whose fine nervous organization was of that kind which is akin to weakness and not to strength--for there are both varieties--his health had been broken by the confinement and harassing labour of his vocation as a clerk in a mercantile office. His wife had a little portion, a very little one, which nevertheless to their inexperienced eyes seemed able to last long and accomplish much; so on the strength of it, and in obedience to the doctor’s peremptory order, that he should have rest and country air, Walter gave up his situation, and the young couple began to make the dangerous experiment of living upon their little capital. The gentle poetic man had been charmed in his early days, in some chance visit to the neighbourhood, by the stately water and pretty town of Fendie, and the pleasant remembrance decided their new habitation.

These rash, youthful folk were more fortunate than prudent people might think they deserved. They excited the interest and kindly sympathy of Mrs Oswald, the banker’s wife, and through her, of her sterner husband; so that when the pleasant summer air had done its gentle spiriting on the wan cheek of Walter Buchanan, and he felt himself able for work again--which was happily before his wife’s little portion was altogether exhausted--he was received into the bank as Mr Oswald’s clerk.

To be called “of the bank,” in a country town in Scotland, is a matter of considerable dignity, and the salary, if small, was enough for their limited expenses. The Oswalds were kind and neighbourly; other friends gathered about the gentle couple; and as they stood in their own garden beneath the heavy branches of their own fruit-trees, in those serene autumnal evenings, watching the sun go down gloriously behind the dark crest of yonder hill, they were wont to render quiet thanksgiving out of full hearts.

This pleasant life continued through ten happy years, and in its placid course the delicate man seemed strengthened in mind no less than in body. His nervous melancholy glided away into graceful mists of pensive thought. The nervous impatience and irritability, which it had once cost him so much pains to subdue, were soothed and softened. He became, mentally no less than physically, as it seemed, a more healthful and a stronger man.

At the end of the ten years his position was changed. They had saved enough to raise their little capital to a larger amount than the original sum on which their inexperience had braved the evils of the world. This was invested in the purchase of bank shares, and Walter Buchanan, a clerk no longer, became Mr Oswald’s partner in the agency of the bank.

An unhappy change. The one peculiar, distinguishing feature of the Scottish banking system, over which our economists boast themselves, became a source of constant torment to Walter Buchanan. The quick and prompt decisions of Oswald, in which he could not join, made him feel his own weaker will overborne and set aside. A hundred “peculiar cases,” and “very peculiar cases,” in which the clear, acute mind of the banker could see no peculiarity at all, troubled the midnight rest of his nervous and tenderhearted partner. That this struggling man whose security was dubious, or that hapless farmer wading knee-deep in difficulties, whose cash account was already overdrawn, and who wanted more, should be dealt with summarily, was clear to Oswald’s steady eye; but was enveloped in painful mists of distress and perplexity to Walter Buchanan, himself acquainted with all the restless shifts and expedients of the struggling poor.

His feelings became morbid again under that exercise. He imagined himself ill-used, despised, trampled upon, when the finer points of his compassionate and impulsive benevolence came into collision with the strong sense and energy of his partner, who in his turn grew impatient of the sentiment which he thought sickly, and the tenderness which he called weak. There was a rupture at last. A struggling man with dubious security came to Buchanan when Oswald was absent from Fendie. The sensitive man of feeling forgot prudence in compassion, and by his ill-judged acceptance of the uncertain “cautioner,” brought serious loss to the bank. Oswald returned; there were sharp and high words spoken by both, which neither, in less excited mood, would have given utterance to; and in a storm of bitter anger and wounded to the very heart, Walter Buchanan threw up his situation, dissolved his partnership with Oswald, and left the bank.

Very soon to leave the world; for, before the winter was over, his course had ended. He could not bear such tempests of excitement, for pain to him was agony, and anger madness. So in his weakness he died, and left his gentle widow and his young daughter to fight with the world alone.

Helen Buchanan was only sixteen. She had a fair proportion of what people call accomplishments, and might almost have been a governess in a boarding-school or a “gentleman’s family;” and beneath the accomplishments there was a sound substratum of education, and a mind matured too early for her own happiness. Fendie was abundantly supplied with _ladies’_ schools; so Helen, in her flush of youthful pride and independence, determined to offer her services to the humbler mothers, and to receive as her pupils not the young ladies, but the little girls of Fendie.

Mrs Buchanan reluctantly acquiesced. She was a gentle, hopeful woman, accustomed to yield always to the quick impulses and keen feelings of her husband, and now rendering a kindred submission to her daughter. Helen was a very dutiful, very loving child, but her mother’s cheerful, patient nature was made to be thus influenced, and unconsciously and involuntarily the stronger spirit bore the mastery.

So when the first pangs of their grief were over, Mrs Buchanan regretfully removed her substantial furniture from the dining-room of which she had been once so proud, and with many sighs saw her little maid-servant arrange in it the bare benches and large work-table which befitted its new character of school-room; and the youthful teacher began her labours.

These had gone on successfully for four or five years before the pleasant April-tide on which Hope Oswald returned home; eventful years to Helen. It is not well to leave the unconscious happiness of girlhood too soon, even to enter upon the enchanted ground of youth. Toil, poverty, and William Oswald; the three together were well nigh too many for the youthful champion who had to struggle, single-handed, against them all.

In the twilight of that April evening she sat in their little parlour alone. The faint firelight gave a wavering flush to the shadowy air of the holy time; and Helen sat in the recess of the window, wandering through the mazes of such a reverie, as belongs especially to her peculiar temperament and mind. For those delicate lines in her face, those continually moving features, those slight starts now and then, and altogether the elastic impulsive energy and life which you could perceive in her figure even in its repose, testified her inheritance of the constitution of her father. With one difference. _His_ nervous, sensitive temperament was akin to weakness; hers, with all its expressive grace, its swift instinctive feelings, its constant life and motion, was strong--strong to endure, although its pain was sorer a thousand times than that of more passive natures--strong to struggle--mighty to enjoy.

She had been out, watching the sun as he shed a golden mist over the dark mass of yonder hill, where it stands out boldly into the Firth, a strong sentinel, keeping watch upon the sea; gleaming in the mid-waters of the estuary, gleaming in the wet sand and shining pools of the deep bay, and throwing out the sunless hillock at the river’s mouth, with its little tower and quiet houses, in bold relief against the far away mountain, and its mantle of streaming gold. The wonderful sky in the west, the broad bed of the Firth, the sunset and its noble scene--there was an enjoyment in these to the delicate soul of Helen, which duller natures have not in the greatest personal blessings of the world.

And now, with her pale cheek resting on her hand, and leaning forward on the window-sill, Helen was lost in a reverie. What was it? only a mist of fair thoughts indefinitely woven together; scenes starting up here and there of the future and of the past, with fairy links of association drawing their strangely-varied band together; old stories, old songs, and breath of music floating through all in gentle caprice--the sweet and pleasant gloaming of the mind.

Mrs Buchanan was out, doing some household business in Fendie, and Helen did not hear the footstep of Hope Oswald as she entered by the garden gate. These quiet houses are innocently insecure; when Hope’s summons remained unanswered, she opened the door herself, and went in.

“Oh, Helen!” exclaimed Hope, as she precipitated herself upon her friend, dispersing in that nervous start all the fair visions of the evening dream. “How glad I am to be home again--how glad I am to see you!--but I scarcely can see you either, because it’s quite dark; and, Helen--you don’t know how I used to weary in Edinburgh just to hear you speak again!”

“Thank you, Hope,” said Helen. “I am very glad to see you; or rather to hear you speak, according to your own sensible distinction. Come, we will get a light and look at each other.”

Mingling with the quick movement of surprise at first, there had been a deep blush and a temporary shrinking from William Oswald’s sister; but another moment restored Hope to her old privileged place of favourite, and Helen rose, her young companion’s eager arms clinging about her waist, to light the one candle on the little table.

The room was small and plainly furnished, though its substantial mahogany chairs and sofa looked respectable in their declining years. On the carpet here and there were various spots of darning artistically done, which rather improved its appearance than otherwise. A large work-basket stood upon the table containing many miscellaneous pieces of sewing; shirts in every stage of progress, narrow strips of muslin, bearing marks of the painful initiation of very little pupils into the mysteries of the thoughtful craft, mingled here and there with scraps of humble “fancy” work, samplers, and the like--all of which the young school-mistress had to arrange and set to rights before the work of to-morrow commenced. A book lay beside the basket--a well-thumbed book from the library. Helen had been idling; for she sometimes did snatch the brief relaxation of a novel, though Maxwell Dickson, the librarian, had no great choice of literature.

“Oh, Helen,” exclaimed Hope again, when the feeble light of the candle revealed to her the pale face of her friend, “I am so very glad to see you again!”

“Thank you, Hope,” repeated Helen; “how you are growing--you will be above us all by and by. When did you come home?”

“Only yesterday,” said Hope; “but are you sure you are quite well, Helen?”

“Quite sure--why?”

“Only because you look pale--paler than you used to do; and, Helen, what makes you sigh?”

“Did I sigh?” said Helen, her delicate wavering colour gradually heightening beneath the girl’s steady affectionate look. “I did not know of it, Hope--it must have been for nothing, you know, when I was not aware of it.”

“Ah, but it was when you were sitting in the dark before you saw me,” said Hope gravely, “and you must have been thinking of something.”

Helen’s colour heightened more and more, yet she smiled.

“Are you going to be an inquisitor, Hope? Do you know people sometimes think very deeply, as you saw me to-night, about nothing? Ah, you shake your head and are very grave and wise, and experienced, I see. Come, I will show you what Cowper says about it.”

“Oh, I know,” said Hope. “I learned all that for Miss Swinton because she likes Cowper; but, Helen, you are not so clever as one of our young ladies; it’s Miss Mansfield, you know, that’s going to Calcutta, and she’s old--she is near eighteen, I am sure--and she sighs; but when Miss Swinton spoke to her about it, she said she was only drawing a long breath. I think,” said Hope disconsolately, “that the people in Fendie are very dull and sad now; for everybody draws long breaths.”

“Have you seen so many, Hope?” said Helen, with an uneasy flush upon her face, and with some evident interest in the question; those constantly moving features were sad telltales.

“I mean just the people I care about,” said Hope; “there is poor William. I do not know what ails William--for he sat in the dark like you, last night, and will always lean his head upon his hands, and sigh--sigh--and my mother--I wish you would not all be so sad.”

Helen Buchanan turned round to examine the contents of her work-basket. Her slender figure was very slightly drawn up; something almost imperceptible like the faint touch of wind upon leaves passed over her; you could not tell what it was, though you could read its swift expression as clearly as written words. Pride--sympathy--a conciousness that moved her heart and yet made it firmer; but Hope’s piece of incidental information did not sadden the face of Helen.

Hope had a comprehension of--though she could by no means have explained how she comprehended--the silent language of Helen Buchanan’s looks and motions; and she arrived at a pretty accurate conclusion in her own simple and shrewd reasonings on the subject. Mrs Buchanan came in so soon that she could try no further experiments with Helen; but as she past through the dim road, half-street, half-lane, in which their house stood, and came into the quiet Main Street of Fendie, with its half-shut shops and groups of wayside talkers, great schemes began to germinate within the small head of Hope Oswald. If only that very unreasonable opposition of her father’s could be overcome, Hope decided that William would be condemned to draw long breaths in the dark no longer. “Miss Swinton says I am sensible,” mused Hope within herself, “and my father says I am clever. I don’t know--I think it will turn out the right way some time, and we shall all be very happy, but just now--I will try!”

And immediately there flitted before the eyes of Hope, in the gentle darkness of the April night, a fairy appearance, we do not venture to say it was anything very ethereal. It was only a vision of a lilac satin frock like that famous one which Miss Adelaide Fendie, of Mount Fendie, wore at her sister’s marriage, and very fascinating was the gleam which it shed about the young schemer as she lingered at her father’s door. Hope Oswald was only fourteen.