CHAPTER VIII.

Amang the fremd I had wandered lang, Heavy was my heart, and sad my sang; Ae green sod covered a’ my kin, There were storms without, and nae hope within, When through the mist a sun-glint came, And I heard a voice, and it aye said hame-- Hame, oh hame! is there rest for me But an’ aneath the green willow tree?--BALLAD.

The Laird of Mossgray greeted Mrs Fendie and her daughter with his usual old-fashioned, graceful politeness--there was something courtly in the gentle bearing of the recluse old man--and said some kindly words of recognition to all the younger personages present, except Hope, who, to the great amazement of the little Fendies, continued steadily before the bow-window, and did not turn round to receive the salutations of Mossgray. Only a very few ordinary observations had been exchanged, when the old man explained his errand.

“I have been seeking a young friend of mine in Cumberland,” said Mossgray, in a voice whose tone of serene kindness thrilled on the ear of Lilias Maxwell, like some familiar music, stilling her tears; “and I have some idea, Mrs Fendie, that your kindness could assist me in my search. I have just returned--”

Hope Oswald left her place by the window, and as Mossgray’s eye wandered there, he suddenly stopped and started from his seat. Drawing back, shivering and half afraid, Lilias looked at him, with tears trembling on her long eyelash, and her white, transparent hand shading her eyes. She was conscious of the presence of no other but himself for the moment, and the strange contradiction of her look, which seemed half to appeal to him for protection, and half to shrink from his scrutiny, confirmed the old man in the sudden idea that this was his ward. Any resemblance that she had to her mother was merely the indefinite and shadowy one, which throws its strange link of kindred over faces which in form and expression are not alike; but he could recognise the daughter of Lilias Johnstone better in the pale, solitary orphan girl before him, than if she had borne her mother’s blooming face, or seemed as full of elastic youth and life as she did, when he saw her last. They stood looking at each other for a moment, and then Mossgray advanced extending his hands.

“Lilias--Lilias Maxwell--that is your name?--and was it the dead, or was it me, whom you distrusted, when you fled from the guardian your mother committed you to?--This was ill-done, Lilias; but you have had weeping and sorrow enough, my poor child, and now you must come home.”

Come home!--was there still such a word for the orphan?

She could not realize it; she sat down passively on the chair Hope Oswald brought her, and spite of the large tears which fell silently now and then, continued to fix her sorrowful eyes upon her mother’s friend. The strange stupor she was in alarmed them all at last.

“Lilias--Lilias,”--repeated Mossgray, as he gently held her hand; but Lilias did not speak. She had been denied the natural due and right of grief; she had been hurried away from her mother’s grave, almost before her desolate heart had been able to shed tears; and now the outraged nature asserted itself:--the strained strength gave way.

At last the weeping came again in a flood, and Lilias awoke; awoke to hear gentle tongues of women who had only cold words to say to her before; and, gentlest of all, the old man’s voice, like some kind sound which she had heard in dreams, and waking, yearned to hear again. And the burden of its speech was ever home; it came upon her ear again and again indistinct in every accent but that--what preceded and what followed was lost to her bewildered sense, but the one word rang clearly through the mist that enveloped her--she was to come home.

And so she did: Hope Oswald wrapped her humble shawl about her, and Mrs Fendie, with her strangely changed voice, accompanied her to the door, and there supported by Mossgray, she entered the carriage which had been sent for, and was driven from the door, the old man sitting by her side. Lilias could scarcely convince herself, until she had entered the room at Mossgray called her own, that it was not all a dream.

The room had been prepared and ready for many days waiting for its stranger guest. A little fire burned in the grate, and gave the look of welcome, which the familiar living, kindly light does give at all times; and through the small, clear panes of the window, the April sun shone in, in the gentle joy of spring. The panelled walls were painted a sombre quiet colour, but here and there were hung small pictures in deep, rich, old-fashioned frames--pictures of such pure faces, saints and angels, as seem now and then to have looked in upon the dreaming sense of olden artists--not all gentle or serene, or at rest, but speaking the common language of humanity; the constantly varying tongue, in whose very weakness, of change and tremulous expression, lies its might and charm.

Some books were arranged upon an old cabinet; books which are everywhere familiar, the friends of all who are able for such fellowship; and some, too, less universally appreciated, which were yet worthy of their place. But Lilias did not then perceive these particulars of her guardian’s delicate care for her. She sat down beside the window, and looked about in a dream.

Before her lay the water, and its peaceful banks, with the charm of youth upon them; beyond were scattered houses with the homelike wealth of cultivated land around, the dwellings of those who, working with honest hands, brought seed and bread out of the soil, as God did prosper them. At her right hand the gray mass of the old warlike tower rose up against the quiet sky, with the moss of peace upon its embattled walls. Lilias had known all her life the fortunes of the poor--had wandered hither and thither with her mother, following the devious track of the weak father, who pursued without ceasing the fortune he had not firmness to wait, or strength to work for; so that in many fair places where they had been, the solitary woman and grave girl had longed to find a home and abiding place, but had been able never. The hunted fortune fled always further away, and the querulous, feeble nature, complaining with fretful selfishness of his own ill-fate, seemed always constrained to follow. Strangers and vagabonds they had been continually, and after the brief repose of the widow and her child in the lonely Cumberland glen, Lilias had felt, when she was hurried away in her earliest agony, that thus it was to be for ever.

But now the atmosphere of home descended about her. Only the natural successions of time, one generation going and another coming, had changed the inmates of these walls. Steadily here upon its native ground, the old house stood like a stately oak, which had shed its acorns there, autumn after autumn, before human eye was near to see, and should remain until the end. We do not think distinct thoughts at times which form the crises of our life, and Lilias did not deliberately reflect on this; but it struck strongly upon her through the mist of sorrow and wonder she was in. This house, whose wealth was of the soil below and the firmament above, whose inheritance was not of silver or of gold, unproductive and barren, but of the fertile land, and the sunshine and the rain of God; this was her home.

But sorrow had broken in her case the elastic nature of youth. Had she remained among strangers, her stay must soon have had a not unusual end; she would have endured for a while, and then have somewhere withdrawn herself to die as her mother died, but bitterer to die alone. As it was, Mossgray gained his ward only in time to save her; and all the summer through Lilias had to be tended like a delicate flower. Vainly she exerted herself and tried to be strong; vainly endeavoured to lessen the anxious cares of her guardian; but it would not do. The springs of youthful strength were stemmed in her worn-out heart. For a few days she had been able convulsively to bind and keep her natural sorrow down; but the reäction was vehement and long.

The lilies daily placed upon her table, the books of all pleasant kinds which he constantly brought to her, the visitors whom, after a month or two had elapsed, he tolerated, and indeed encouraged, for her sake--all the gentle things the old man did, day by day, and hour by hour, conspired to invigorate the broken mind of Lilias, and restore its tone and power. She knew that he too grieved for the dead, and she felt that it became her to render him some other return for his tenderness to herself than those pale looks and tears; so conscientiously and painfully she struggled to regain the cheerfulness becoming her years. It was a hard task, for Lilias had not the elastic vitality which springs up in renewed vigour from the prostration of grief--her nature had much of pensive calm in it; but she struggled against her overwhelming sorrow, and the very effort helped her to overcome.

Mrs Oswald visited her in kindly friendship, and Mrs Fendie came to patronize, and suggest, and arrange. Mrs Fendie did not see how Miss Maxwell could remain, unless Mr Graeme got some “experienced person,” some presiding matron to make his house a proper residence for his ward. Adam Graeme of Mossgray was sixty; he thought the countryside had known him long enough and well enough to trust the daughter of Lilias Johnstone in his hands, as confidently as though he had been her father; and Mrs Oswald agreed with him.

And Lilias had at once secured the very warm friendship of Hope, who already meditated making use of her in her grand scheme for the elevation of Helen Buchanan, and the conversion of her father. To make Miss Maxwell intimate with Helen, Hope decided in her very grave and elaborate deliberations over the whole difficult question of her father’s resolution and the means to overcome it, would be a great step in advance, but it was decidedly impracticable at present; so Hope, like a wise general, prepared the way with each by praising the other, and suspended more practical operations.

Slowly the faint colour which was natural to her began to dawn upon the white cheeks of Mossgray’s Lilias. The old man’s study in the tower was almost deserted; the small projecting turret with its windowed roof and wondrous telescope began to look forlorn and melancholy; the large low room within lay whole days in gloomy silence; the famous chemic tools of which the children of Fendie had heard thrilling whispers, were gathering a gentle coat of dust. Their owner had experiments to make of a kind more curious than those in which he used them. He was discovering one by one the qualities of the human heart so strangely given in charge to him--was discerning star after star rise upon her firmament--patience, faith, hope--kindly human hope, which has somewhat in this very world beside its riches in the world to come.

One autumn evening (for the summer was over before Lilias recovered her strength) they went out together to the river-side. He was telling her how it had been his fellow and companion all his days.

“There is something human in this running water,” said the old man. “So we go on, Lilias, through our different stages, blind to what is to come next, often unconscious of the pleasant places we travel through; but though we chafe sometimes, and seem to pause and delay, how constantly the stream runs on! I like it for its humanity--for all the light, and all the darkness, and the winds that touch, and the rains that flood it--for its beginning and for its end. It pleases me to give it life and utterance, and think it human like myself.”

“You knew it when you were young, Mossgray,” said Lilias, “and it is beside you still.”

She still felt this as something strangely gladdening; to dwell in one place a lifetime; to appropriate it all; to have friendships with its hills and its rivers; to feel that it was home.

“Yes,” said Mossgray, looking back at his old house as it lay in the shade, from which the slanting light of the western sun had nearly passed away, “yes, it is a happiness--it is a pleasant thread, this river, on which to hang the memories of one’s life; there was no water, Lilias, in your Cumberland glen?”

“Only a brook,” was the answer, “and we used to sit and watch it, for its way was too steep to follow--and sometimes--”

Ah, that climbing sorrow! how it returned and returned again!

“But you have travelled,” said Mossgray, gently leading her from this painful recollection; “you have scarcely gone so far as I have, but you have seen many places:--let me hear of your wanderings, Lilias.”

“Have you been far away, Mossgray?”

“Very far,” said Mossgray, with a mournful smile, “and my furthest journey was a very sad one; I went to seek a dear friend, and I found him not--that was in India.”

“In India!” A flush of sudden light came over the face which turned to him so earnestly.

“Yes. Are you interested in that great world, Lilias?”

“It must be a very great country indeed,” said Lilias, slowly, “where the principal places are so far apart. Will you tell me where you were, Mossgray?”

The old man smiled.

“I could have told you long since, had I known you cared for such a subject. I was in Bombay, Lilias, and far into the interior beyond Bombay.”

“In Bombay!” There was another flush of interest--the tall slight figure had never looked so life-like, nor the form so animated.

“Yes, in Bombay--do you know anything of Bombay, Lilias?”

“No, no,” said Lilias, with a sudden blush, “I do not know--but I have heard--we had a friend once who went there.”

She cast a sidelong, tremulous look upward to his face. He did not smile as she feared he would. It pleased him to hear of the friend, and the tone in which the friend was mentioned pleased him. He was glad there was some one in the world, the name of whose habitation had power to move the slumbering fountain of young life within her; he was glad that in this present world she had some other tie than the new relationship which bound her to himself, and in his delicate kindness he looked and spoke gravely, to encourage her to confide in him.

“And you would like me to tell you about it. Would not reading do as well?”

“No, no,” repeated Lilias; “the book does not live--you do not see the eyes which saw those things you want to hear of, as I see yours, Mossgray, and--the place is fine, is it not?”

“I think so,” was the answer; “yes, I remember that; but, Lilias, when I was there, I was sick at heart--sick with anxiety at first--and sick when I came away, with hope deferred--I should say with hope extinguished. The calamity that maketh the heart sick, clouds a fair landscape sadly, Lilias, and when I think of that beautiful eastern country, I think of it as the grave of my friend.”

“Did he die?” asked Lilias, in the tremulous low voice, which for the few preceding moments had been changed.

Mossgray paused. Thirty years had elapsed since colder men decided Hew Murray’s fate, thirty years without a sign or token, the faintest that hope could build on; and yet the old man hesitated to say he died.

“Lilias, I cannot tell. He was my dear friend; we were close brethren in our youth; do you think he can have lived these thirty years, and given no sign?”

“No, Mossgray,” said Lilias, “oh, no, no! I do not think it can be hard to die; but to live while your dearest friends think you are dead--no, no--it could not be!”

The old man sighed.

“Then he is dead,” he said.

There was a pause.

“And this friend of yours,” resumed Mossgray, at last, “he likes Bombay, Lilias?”

The light came again more timidly.

“I think so--I mean, he does not _like_ it--it is not home--but--”

“But he thinks he will prosper there, and he is young, and has good cause for his toil?”

Lilias looked at her guardian shyly again; but there was no ghost of raillery on the kind face of Mossgray; he would have her think cheerily of the young hopes of the labourer over the sea.

And Lilias looked away far into the distant air, and answered with a voice so full and rich in its low music, that Mossgray scarcely knew it for hers,--

“And for his mother’s sake.”