CHAPTER XIV.

But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.--PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL.

“Gang in bauld, man--put on a guid face, and tak the first word o’ flyting. What are ye looking sae wae about?--they’ll e’en be ower blythe to welcome ye hame.”

“Na, na, Robbie, I ken better,” said the person whom Robbie Caryl was exhorting; a tall, thin, sunburnt young man, who limped a good deal, and looked sickly and weak. “Man, I wad rather face a file o’ bagnets than face my faither and him angry; and I wad gie a’ the Indies gin I had them, if he would just be friends wi’ me again.”

“Friends wi’ ye?--ne’er a fears o’ him,” said the fisherman. “I’ll just tell ye, Peter--if he disna be friends wi’ you after a’ you’ve gaen through, and a’ he’s gaen through himsel, I could maist find it in my heart to pit him in Tam Macqueen’s boat the first ill day, and let him set to wi’ the Firth, and try which ane’ll master the tither--for he’s past dealing wi’ men.”

“Whisht, Robbie, ye dinna ken,” said the young man. “I’ll hear nae mortal speak ill o’ my faither; if I could but get a word o’ my mother, hidelins--just to see--maybe he’s mair merciful noo. He’s an auld man--he’s winning near heaven. Wha kens--he may be turned to mair mercy.”

Their path lay along the side of the Marsh, and they had just rounded the projecting corner, on which the comfortable farmsteading of Seabraes, with its barns and byres, and hay-stacks, stood, looking on the Firth, with only a swelling bank of close seaside grass between it and the beach. On this green bank, the stakes of the salmon-nets used during the summer were piled in a rude pyramid, and past it wound a byway to Fendie. They were advancing towards the gate of a field through which the road lay.

A gaunt, high figure stood leaning there, hidden by the hedge. Saunders Delvie had heard that his son lived and was returned from young Hew Grant, who last evening had visited the cottage along with Mossgray to prepare the way for the prodigal; and now, trembling under the cold, bright November sunshine, the father stood waiting for his son.

The proud old man was glad that he had been warned--glad that he had time to compose the rigid muscles of his face, and that no man could guess how his joy boiled in his veins, and how the passionate heart beat in his breast. He was solemnly dressed in his decent Sabbath suit, and looked almost hysterically calm, though all his endeavours could not put away the look of high, suppressed excitement from his twitching eyebrows and stern-featured face.

“Faither! faither!” cried Peter Delvie, as they came suddenly upon him--the old man’s efforts at calmness, and his unusual dress, carried fear to the heart of his son: poor Peter lifted his hand imploringly. “I was only a laddie--have pity on me--have pity upon me, faither!”

The grim muscles twitched, and worked about the old man’s mouth; the dew hung heavy on his eyelashes.

“Come hame, lad,” he said, in a voice husky with the effort which confined his welcome to those seeming indifferent words. “Come hame, lad, to your mother. What garred ye sleep under a fremd roof this last night, and your ain bed waiting on ye at hame?”

“I thought I had some skill in men,” said Robbie Caryl, as he turned back to his cottage, vehemently pulling down his eyelid on pretence that some particle of the innocent wet sand had entered his eye. “I thocht I could see through maist folk, but this ane’s beat me. The auld dour whig o’ a man! wasna I feared to face him when the word came that the lad was dead? and was I no fleyed for him fenting like the women folk for sake o’ the joy? Ne’er a bit o’ him--he taks his son hame as canny as I would tak little Sandy out o’ a dub. Are ye there again in the saut water, ye wee black dielie? I’ll pin ye in the net amang the grilse, and sell ye up in the toun for a fat flounder, as sure as the next tide--wife! is this bairn to drown itsel, ance for a’, the day?”

“I’m sure it’s mair your business, Robbie, to keep the laddies out o’ mischief than mine,” answered Robbie’s wife, who was spreading out the large stake nets on long ropes to dry, the season of fishing being now over; “but what hae ye dune wi’ Peter? has he gane hame?”

“I gied him in a present to his faither,” said the fisherman, lifting the little wet obstreperous Sandy upon his shoulders, “and Saunders took him as quiet as that cuddie taks the thrissles--so a’ the splore’s dune, Jean, and I maun awa into the toun wi’ the flounders; whaur’s the creels?”

“Mr Oswald,” said Saunders Delvie solemnly, looking in at the door of the banker’s private room, as he passed the bank on his way home. “I hae gotten back my son; he was dead and is alive again--he was lost and is found--and I’ve come to offer ye my thanks, Sir, for your guid counsel. The Lord sent grief sae lang as I called His name to witness my wrath against the lad, but now, when I hae learned better, behold the mercy! I’m thankfu’ to you, Maister Oswald--I’m an auld man, but I needed to learn--and I’m thankfu’ aboon a’ to Him that pat words o’ guid counsel into your mouth, and garred my heart change--for now I’m taking Peter hame.”

The banker fell back in his chair as Saunders withdrew, looking and feeling very much disconcerted; for _he_ had offered no good counsel--had given no advice. The thanks which he did not deserve fell on him with the strength of just reproof. The pen fell from his fingers--the solemn joy and thanksgiving of the stern old peasant moved him almost as much as his grief had done. It touched the conscience of the obdurate father of William Oswald.

“And was you killed at the same place as the gentleman, Peter, my man?” said Peter’s mother, wiping her eyes, as the first excitement of their meeting subsided. The cottage too was in very solemn order, and the house-mother had put on her Sabbath gown. There was a grave significance in these changes.

“Na--I got my wound at anither place, mother,” said Peter, “and they pat me in the hospital. It was just when I came out that I heard o’ the gentlemen--that they were gaun hame; sae I gaed to Mr Murray--I minded hearing aboot him being lost lang ago--and tellt him my story, and he engaged me to be his servant. His servant, mother; but I think he paid mair attention to me on the road hame than I could do to him, and said he would speak to my faither. I wish--I just wish there was onything in the world the like o’ me could do--no like to make it up to him, but just to let him see that ane was thankful; but I’m come hame a puir useless object, mother; they say I’ll be lame a’ my days.”

Poor Peter began to look disconsolate again. The idea of being a burden on those for whom he would so gladly have laboured, was very bitter to him.

“Dinna, laddie, dinna,” said Saunders Delvie. “I’m strong and hale, the Lord be thanked, though I’m auld; do ye think I winna work for ye baith as blythe, ay, as blythe as the day ye were born--as blythe as I gaed out to my wark, Marget, the first time I heard the bairn greet in this house, and kent the blessing was come? Maistly blyther, woman, for I didna ken the depths then as I do now. What for do ye greet? I tell ye it behoves us to gie the Lord thanks, and no’ tears, for His mercy.”

But the tears were the thanks; they hung upon Saunders’s own withered cheek as he reproved his wife.

“Nae doubt but we’ll fend,” said the mother, “nae doubt but we’ll be provided for. Wha ever wanted yet that put trust where it should be put? But gang away, Saunders, like a man, and put on your ilka day’s claes; I canna help it--it comes into my head ye’ve been at a funeral when I look at ye, and the like o’ thae thochts are no’ for this day.”

And in this cottage and in Mossgray the joy of reünion was the same, only perhaps so much the greater here, as the passionate spirit of this old man was more intense and vehement than any other near him, greater alike in its joys and sorrows.

In Mrs Buchanan’s little parlour those long November evenings were less busy now; the dreaded Martinmas came and went; the work was finished and the rent paid.

Six pounds--how small a sum it was--and yet it had swallowed up the whole half-yearly dividend, and the whole produce of their hard labours. Helen began to look discontentedly at her best gown, that long-preserved black silk one, which now that her brown merino was so far gone, must be worn every day, and for which no substitute could be obtained; and Mrs Buchanan sighed over the thin shawl as she daintily darned the places where it began to give way, and smoothed her daughter’s hair tenderly, in an unconscious endeavour to console her. Mrs Buchanan comforted herself by thinking that, in spite of the old shawl and the one much-worn gown, her poor Helen looked a gentlewoman still; but the days grew chill, and other people were wearing cloaks and plaids and furs. Mrs Buchanan sighed--she could not venture to make any addition to Helen’s stock, for the next half-year’s rent began to lour upon her gloomily already. How was it to be met?

Helen was a good deal overcast with those cares too, but the clouds never settled down upon her firmament; they came and went, as the ceaseless breezes drove them hither and thither, a hundred times in a day; and between every pang of heart-sickness, between those weary sighings for something happier, which could not choose but fall upon her sometimes, there always intervened bright glimpses of wayward sunshine, stirrings of the young uncontrollable life, the nervous strength and daring of her nature, which rose to meet the struggle when it came, and when it was not present, happily forgot it all.

It was Saturday, the first Saturday for a long time which she had not spent with Lilias. But Lilias was joyfully engrossed with the strangers, and Helen shyly kept herself apart, and felt a shadow of contrast upon her own sombre, unchanging lot; but just as she began to sink under her natural dimness, an appearance crossed her eyes, which brought out the merry, ringing laugh, and flushed her sky with the sunshine of gay impulse. The appearance was the Reverend Robert Insches escorting a lady--a very young, very bashful, very pretty little lady, who seemed to see a good deal of fascination in the handsome head which bent down to her so graciously. If he was beginning to be cured of the more serious wound, the Reverend Robert was not cured of the mortification. The pretty little girl was a Laird’s daughter, by no means disinclined to smile upon the handsome minister. He was escorting her home--the traitor, on a Saturday! and chose this road out of the remaining anger and malice aforethought, which still testified the power of Helen, to try if he could not mortify her as she had mortified him.

There never was a more lamentable failure. Mrs Buchanan upstairs heard the ringing laugh break the silence, and then the new impulse of mirth made itself a voice. The good mother listened with a smile. Helen was moving about below. Helen was singing, and in another moment the gay voice and the light foot came upstairs, keeping time with each other in the pleasant caprice of a cheerful heart.

Mrs Buchanan was working at a particular “fancy work” of her own. She was darning the carpet. The carpet had been new once, but that was so very many years ago, that it was growing aged now, and feeble like other things. There is a pleasure in doing what one knows one can do well. Mrs Buchanan had a modest pride in her skill for repairing these dilapidations of time; and the natural delicacy of mind which could not be at ease while there was anything ungraceful or imperfect around it, expressed itself after this homely fashion. She did not patronize finery at all, but the aesthetical feelings were delicately developed in the good mother’s mind nevertheless, and there was art in her darned carpet.

“Will you come with me, mother, to the Waterside?” said Helen.

“I must have this done: I don’t want to begin to it again, my dear,” said Mrs Buchanan, looking up from her work; “and besides, it is very frosty and cold, Helen; wrap yourself up as well as you can, and I will have a cup of tea for you when you come in again.”

So Helen drew the shawl, which fortunately had been of very sober colours in its far-distant youth, over her merino gown, and tieing on her little straw bonnet with its plain brown ribbon, went down-stairs again, and out into the clear, chill November air. It was rather cold, but bright and exhilarating, and singing snatches of old songs under her breath, Helen went happily down the steps of the bridge till she reached the river-side, far down, towards the waterfoot.

Yonder, quivering under the red, bold, frosty sun, the great Firth thrills through its full veins with the joyous impulse of life. Far away among some quiet clouds is Skiddaw and his humbler brother, vigilant, far-seeing, watching over “the English side,” as it slopes down, in the serene evening atmosphere, to the brink of the great waves; and there the winding Fendie water glides into the estuary, and cold at that point looks the round hillock from which the sun has quite withdrawn, while in the west that great bluff hill which defies Skiddaw has a glory on him almost too grand to look at, and the range of far-withdrawing hills, of which he is the last and greatest, open away in the distance, with cloudy peaks ascending behind, and clear intervals of sky, like lakes, between.

The air was very quiet, the river drowsy with the frost, the last old patriarchal leaves fluttering down one by one. In shady nooks which the sun had not reached, the morning hoar frost was still white upon the grass. Calmly over the world stole the slow change, clothing the earth like a garment with all its blessed uses in it. Calm over all, the great sun went down unchanging--the wonderful heavens stood constant for ever. Strange harmony--strange contrast; the eternal yonder, stedfast in the skies--the immortal here, born to be swayed, and taught, and changed in right of its humanity--the child of the great heavens.

The clouds were still red in the west, and from the haze of light which the sun left for a moment behind him, the dark stern hill stood boldly out. Helen was about to turn back, carrying more sadly the heart that came hither singing like a bird; for great thoughts were rising in it now, thoughts which breathe only in the graver air, and hush the voice of singing.

“Helen!”

How she started! but slowly, only very slowly, her pride permitted her to turn, to ascertain whence the voice came.

“I have been looking for you up the water,” said William Oswald, coming up with a warm eager glow upon his face; “and should have gone back again to your mother disconsolately, had I not caught a glimpse of your shawl.”

She looked at it very pleasantly; the venerable, aged friend; it was good for something in this world after all.

“And now, Helen, I have a great deal to say to you.”

Helen did not doubt it. There came upon her a slight tremour; this then was to be the final combat, hand to hand. He was resolved to conquer; she saw it in his eye, and for the first time she was afraid.

But at present William Oswald said nothing very warlike; he began to speak of his work in Edinburgh--his book; and Helen in spite of herself was interested. He told her of his prosperity; the rising good name; the modest beginning of fortune; frankly and in full confidence, as people speak to those who have a right to know, and an interest in all which concerns the speaker; and Helen turned her head away now and then half afraid of this quiet appropriation--this strange _right_ by which he claimed her sympathy.

Other people had been walking that Saturday afternoon beside the wan water. Far upon the opposite side, Hope Oswald and her father were returning from Fairholm, where they had been to make a call--a business call of Mr Oswald’s, in which he had persuaded his favourite to accompany him.

“Do you know where William went, when we came out, Hope?” said the banker.

Hope looked up doubtfully in her father’s face; but she hesitated only a moment. “He went to Mrs Buchanan’s, father.”

Mr Oswald said nothing. William had only been a few hours at home, but during these had undergone a scrutiny of which he little dreamed. The banker had been prepared to find his son changed, and had prepared himself to be contemptuous; but William was not changed: and the old pertinacity began to tighten its grasp upon his father’s heart.

In a quiet link of the water, not very far from Fendie, yet as still and solitary as though it were in the midst of a wilderness, lay a little mossy burying-ground. They are frequent in that Border district; melancholy, green, dewy places, sometimes clustering their tall, grey spectral gravestones about the ruined walls of an ancient chapel, sometimes altogether deserted by the reliques of the old faith--lying alone, by roadsides and in quiet places, disturbed only when grave processions come, to add to the number of the names of those who are dwelling there.

A few fine old trees grew within the enclosure and round it; through a fringe of long bare willow branches you could see the water. Mimic forests of moss covered the trunks of the trees, and minute white fungi specked the green with delicate flower-bells. Hope Oswald had a great admiration of those lichens--she entered the graveyard to seek some specimens of them--and her father good-humouredly followed her.

The strong man’s heart was softened; he was more open to kindly impressions than usual; and as he stood waiting for his favourite child, his eye fell upon a grave. Nothing had happened in his prosperous life to bring him near such solemn dwelling-places as this. He had lost no children; and the memory of father, mother, and brethren, had faded out of his heart long ago. He had never seen this humble stone before: “Sacred to the memory of Walter Buchanan;” it moved him like the dead man’s voice.

With a hushed and whispering tone the river passed by upon its way, and the willows rustled on the water with a low lamenting cadence. Amid such sights and sounds as living he would have loved to hear, the gentle man lay dead; where none could ask or give forgiveness--where none could alter the unjust anger, the evil sternness, the cruel pride which was past. The heart of the rigid man began to beat and tremble, as he remembered the absolute conclusion put to all human doings by that grave. A little time the glad vicissitudes of change should remain for himself--and then--

What life soever he had darkened--what truth dishonoured--what mercy neglected--absolute and stern, the coming death should fix them all unchangeable for ever.

He was a Christian man, despite of all the weakness which lay in his boasted strength. He felt that the secrets of his own heart lay bare before the Eye which judged the dead. Wonderingly Hope Oswald looked into her father’s awed and changing face. She dared not venture to say, “This is poor Mr Buchanan’s grave,” as, with simple art, she had intended, when she first observed it; and in silence he took her hand and led her away.

His stronghold was broken down--his worldly wisdom failed him. He had deliberated on all his actions all his life--should he obey the impulse now?

“Hope,” said the subdued banker, “why did you speak of Mr Grant that evening we went to see Saunders Delvie? Do you remember? Why did you say to them that you thought Peter was alive?”

The sensible Hope was perplexed.

“I--I don’t know, father,” she said, with some hesitation. “I just said it because it came into my head.”

And the prudent, deliberate, elderly banker felt himself constrained to copy his child.

“Go home now, Hope,” said Mr Oswald, as they reached the bridge. “I have something to do; tell your mother I shall not be long.” And Mr Oswald hurried away to say what had come into his head. The obstinate man felt that it was right, and that he dared not trust himself to consider. Very grand and successful had been Hope’s experiment--her father determined to try one of his own.

William Oswald had indeed a great deal to say. They lingered on their walk, Helen and he, till the dusk stole over the sky, blotting out the sunny clouds in the west. He was a good general, this grave resolute William; he skirmished with his restless suspicious adversary, till he got her into the most favourable position for his decisive movement, and then he struck the blow.

But her usual bravery had forsaken Helen; against the strong will which took possession of her now, she could not bring up the buoyant might of resistance which was so available in her usual struggles. She tried it faintly, but the proud heart would only flutter, it would not rise to the warfare; and so poor Helen perforce had to listen, and at the critical point of the listening, instead of keeping up the combat as she had hitherto done, could only, by some strange imbecility which she by no means comprehended, say something which ended in “your father.”

The moment the words were said, the heart did rise in indignation at its own treachery; but they _were_ said, and she was compelled to listen again.

“I have not spoken to my father yet,” said William, “but he thinks I have given up this matter, Helen, and he thinks he is very much satisfied.”

He had done it now--the enchantment began to relax--the eager heart sprang up in awakened strength, again resolute not to be conquered.

“He thinks I have forgotten,” pursued the imperturbable William, “and he thinks he is satisfied; but at the same time, Helen, he thinks I am a very pitiful fellow, and that there is no one like you in all Scotland.”

They were close to the gate of Mrs Buchanan’s little house. The weaker belligerent visibly started--not at the singular speech alone, but at a sight more singular; for there with his hand upon the wicket gate, awkwardly fumbling about the latch, and looking as shy as ever girl looked, stood the banker Oswald.

He was just parting with Mrs Buchanan; but Mrs Buchanan’s impetuous daughter had reached the gate before he could open it. The stern banker was very much confused; he looked up awkwardly at the unquiet face with its strange, perplexed wonder--its singular mixture of emotions--pride, anger, pleasure, even--alas, for Helen’s dignity--a little fun; for the confusion of the respectable Mr Oswald had something ludicrous in it.

No one would help him; he appealed to William with a glance, but the uncompassionating William looked on with secret glee, and offered no assistance. Mr Oswald was very much confused. He wanted to say something to the purpose, but could not accomplish it; so he said something which was not to the purpose.

“A cold evening, Miss Buchanan.”

Miss Buchanan’s expectant face was turned full upon him. Her rapid lip moved unconsciously as he said the unmeaning words. She bowed her shy graceful bow, and passed him with the swift nervous motion which belonged exclusively to herself. The banker looked a little blank; he _did_ want to say something, and he was annoyed that he had failed.

“Helen, my dear--Helen,” said the good mother, with a slight tone of reproof. Helen paused and turned round within the gate; the slight impatient motion--the embarrassed frank look--Mr Oswald was pleased that like himself Helen did not know what to say.

“I came to say,” said the banker slowly, “that my wife intended--I mean wished, to call to-morrow if your mother would permit her, and that we--that is, I hope we shall see more of each other in future, Miss Buchanan--good night.”

He held out his hand--shyly the small nervous fingers met it. The banker looked dubiously in her face; was it to be peace? but she only said good night--and Mr Oswald turned away with a doubtful, pleased smile, too much occupied to notice his son till he stumbled against him, and then suffered the glad silent grasp of William’s hand, in token of full and happy reconciliation.

In the little parlour, the tea-tray was on the table, the fire shining brightly, the light--though there was still but one candle--cheerfully filling the homelike room; but Helen ran upstairs and laughed a little, and shed a few bright tears, and came down exceedingly dignified and proper, endeavouring to persuade herself that she was angry, but certainly shedding no angry radiance round her, out of her shining eyes.

The old kind face in the old corner; the pleasant, familiar, son’s voice discoursing of old household things which no one else knew as he did. Mrs Buchanan wondered at herself how she could ever tolerate another--could ever dream that any but he might be the future son.