CHAPTER VII.

He speired at her mother, he speired at her father, He speired at a’ her kin, But he speiredna the bonnie lass hersel, Nor did her favour win.--KATHERINE JANFARIE.

Walter Johnstone remained nearly a month at Fendie. During this time he made two or three visits to Edinburgh, but as a new beginner, he was not yet very much cumbered with business. He was the brother of Lilias--I became interested in all his pursuits, and indulgent of all his foibles. We were seldom separate; for if I was abroad with Walter almost all the day, I sat in my especial corner in the Greenshaw parlour all the evening, and that privilege was cheaply purchased by any fatigue or inconvenience. I fancied I began to make some silent gradual progress. I fancied Lilias was scarcely so shy as she used to be in my presence, and I myself began to be a little more rational in my adoration. To the devout homage of the age of chivalry, I endeavoured to add a little of that more ordinary and slighter thing, which is called “paying attention.” I adopted as much of it as the shyness of my deeper feeling would permit, and almost envied, while I was offended by, the fluent ease of Maxwell, who like myself was a frequent visitor at Greenshaw, but who, unlike me, could be quite at ease with Lilias, and ventured to treat her like any ordinary girl. Ordinary girl! what do I say? there was no such being in existence to me. Unapproachable, above all others, was my own queen and lady, but the light of her presence shed a reflection upon _them_. I owed them all a reverence for her sake.

Maxwell was preparing to go away, he said. I wished him in India with all my heart, and wondered audibly why he delayed so long. Not that I was what is vulgarly called jealous; but while I did feel envious of any sharer in my sunshine, I grudged that it should fall on one to whom it was merely common light. I was angry because he did “pay attention” to Lilias, and I thought meanly of him because, admitted as he was to her society, he could be content with “paying attention.” Altogether his presence irritated me. I heartily wished him away.

Walter Johnstone was a pleasant companion--even forgetting, had that been possible, whose brother he was: we became great friends. He was too acute not to perceive how matters stood, and I fancied he had no desire to discourage me. We were out together on the last day of his stay at Greenshaw: he had become very confidential, he told me his circumstances with his partner, his anticipated income, his intention of taking a house in York Place; and finally, the last and greatest of all, his prospect of getting a mistress to the house. I listened with the greatest interest, and congratulated with the utmost warmth--it was impossible for any brother to have been more sympathetic than I--and then, with sudden boldness, I poured out into his ear my own great secret. When the first barrier was removed, the flood poured forth too strongly for any diffidence to check it. I spoke very fervently, as I felt. I fancy it must have been with some sort of natural eloquence too, for Walter’s hand trembled when he grasped mine, and promised me his help.

Before I recollected myself, while we were still in a kind of cloud of excited earnestness, I found myself in Mr Johnstone’s presence; and then, as there is no boldness like the nervous boldness of your shy man when he reaches the needful heat, I made speedy conquest of him. Then I was ushered into the well-known parlour, with its forenoon look of quietness and new arrangement, to wait for Lilias.

The slow sunbeams stealing through the blinds, the chairs standing formally in their places, the closed piano, the books replaced in their shelves, the work-table withdrawn in its corner; how vividly I remember all these homely usual things, and how solemn they made my waiting. She came at last--and then I remember in a mist how the full tide of my eloquence poured forth again, and how I was successful. Yes, successful! I left Greenshaw triumphantly, the proud possessor of the plighted troth of Lilias.

I returned home in happy unconsciousness of how or where I went. On the way I met Maxwell, I recollect, and was too much elevated above all ordinary things to do more than speak the briefest words of recognition to him, overflowing though I was with the universal benevolence of a light heart; and yet, withal, I remember how some faint ghost of consciousness haunted me that I was not happy enough--that Lilias’s consent was sadly mechanical, that it lacked--but no! I was not so profane as that; I could see nothing lacking in Lilias.

I was not to see her again that night--she was engaged at some Fendie party--and so I wandered the evening out by the water-side, flying from less ethereal society. I had half an idea of going to tell Lucy, but, like a miser, I chose to exult over my secret treasure a little longer before I shared the joy of it with any one.

And I remember well what wondrous dreams glided before my eyes, in bright processions, peopling yonder far-away glades and noble trees with groups of fairy figures, more beautiful than ever dreamer saw before. I saw her pass over the threshold of Mossgray with her bridal grace upon her. I saw her dwell there in her gracious, growing womanhood, drawing all pleasant things towards her as flowers turn to the sun; and though my heart did indeed beat high with proud gladness, when I remembered that it was _my_ name she shed so sweet a lustre on, and that it was _I_ who stood beside her in all the shifting groups of my fancy--even that stood aside, as selfish rejoicings must always do, in presence of the supreme joy I had in herself. That she was--that in our dim world there shone this one especial star, as true, as pure, as gracious as the heavens--whose constant outcoming must be beneficence and love; whose constant meed--too poor a one for her lofty deservings--must be blessings and honour. I could not fathom the depths of my own happiness--I could but float upon its sunny stream.

The next morning rose brightly in all the brilliant joy of June, and as early as I could venture, I set out for Greenshaw. The slight morning traffic of those quiet Fendie streets--the cottage wives, upon its outskirts, going about their cheerful household labour--the domestic sounds that came pleasantly from the wayside houses--I remember them with the sunshine of my own joy over all, giving harmony and finest keeping to the homely picture. At last I approached the well-known holly hedge. A woman stood at the gate looking down the lane; the parlour-blinds were closed; there was a look of excitement about the house, as if something unusual had happened. I hurried on, noticing _that_ in my haste, but too pleasantly expectant to think of it.

The woman at the door was Mr Johnstone’s factotum--a sensible, matronly person, who exercised the more laborious duties of housekeeper, for which Lilias was too inexperienced and young.

“Good morning, Margaret,” I said, as I came up and was about to pass in.

Margaret stretched out her hand to stop me.

“Oh, Mossgray!”

There was evident distress and trouble on her face. A slight tremor of alarm came over me.

“Has anything happened?” I said. “What is the matter, Margaret?”

“Ower muckle--ower muckle,” said the housekeeper of Greenshaw, lifting her apron to her eyes; “oh, for onysake dinna gang in!--and yet he maun ken--there’s nae use trying to keep it frae him.”

The last part of the sentence was spoken under her breath; I became very much agitated.

“What is it, Margaret? Is Lilias ill? What has happened?”

“I’ll tell ye, Mossgray,” said Margaret, quickly, the arm which she had extended to bar my entrance falling to her side. “It wad be dearly telling her, she had been ill this day. She’ll live yet to ken, that the sorest fever that ever chained a mortal to a sick bed wad hae been a blessed tether o’ her wilful feet this woefu’ morning. Dinna think o’ her, Maister Adam. I ken it’s hard, but ye maun try; dinna think o’ her--she’s no wurdy o’t.”

I clutched the woman’s arm, angry and eager. I could not speak.

“Weel then, she’s gane--she’s away--her that was the light o’ our e’en--that we couldna see ill in--that I’ve heard ye even to the very angels, Mossgray. She’s gane--fled out from her father’s house with yon young haverel o’ a doctor, that has neither wealth to keep, nor wit to fend for her. Oh, guid forgie me, Mr Adam! what have I dune?”

My face alarmed her, I fancy. I pressed blindly in--Walter Johnstone stood before me. I was close upon him before I was aware of his presence; I looked in his face.

He turned from me with a burst of emotion, which seemed to wake me from some terrible nightmared sleep.

“Mossgray, I did not know it--I had no suspicion of this. Believe me, Adam, believe me, that I am blameless! She has deceived us all!”

I felt a hoarse contradiction struggling from my dry lips--still I could not hear _her_ blamed. Then I turned away; I could hold no further parley with any one; I hurried into the sheltering solitude of my own lonely house.

The bright world without mocked and scorned me--the passers-by looked wonderingly at my stricken face. I could not linger by the water-side now, in the first shock of my vanished and ruined dreams. I fled into this solitary room, within the silent walls of which so many slow years have passed since then, and threw myself into my chair, and pressed my throbbing head between my hands. It was only then that I realized what had come upon me.

I am an old man now, and these passionate struggles of youth have faded in the far distance, veiled in the gentler mists of memory. Yet I do remember them--I do remember me of minute and trifling things--the open book lying there upon this floor--the solitary lily drooping in its vase--the snowy leaf that had fallen upon the window-ledge below; and how the pale and fierce light of my calamity fixed the image of them for ever on the tablets of my heart. I remember--it is not such seasons that men can forget.

I had lost her for ever--alas! that was not all--she had never been. The conviction forced itself upon me till I grew well nigh mad. I dashed my clenched hands into the air; I could not restrain the wild fit of passion, the irrational frenzy that possessed me. I was alone! the things which I had worshipped and made my idols were things of air--mists of my early morning, melting away before the stern and sober light--and I was left here desolate, forlorn, and solitary, and there was nothing true under the sun.

It is a bitter and a sorrowful thing to mourn for the dead--to lament over those who have gone away out of this shadowy land into the brighter country, where they yet are, and shall be, all the more sure in their wonderful existence that we see them not. But to mourn for those who have never been--to behold stars fall from your horizon, the glory of whose shining was but a phantasm of your brain, a creation of your own soul; to awake suddenly from your contemplation of some noble and beautiful spirit, the fairest that ever gladdened mortal vision, and to find that it _is_ not, and _was_ not, and that the place, which in your dream was illuminated by its glorious presence, is filled by a shadowy thing of unknown nature, which you never saw before--this is the bitterest of griefs. If there is sorrow more hard than this, I bow my head to it in fear and reverence; but this is my woe, and prince of woes.

Drifting from false anchorage, surrounded by spectral ships and ghostly receding shores, hopelessly driven over the treacherous sea; with no light but an indefinite twilight, sickening the faint heart with visions of shadowy haven and harbour, and false security. A world of mists--a universe of uncertain, unknown existences, which are not as you have dreamed, and among whom you must go forth alone, no longer devoutly to believe and warmly to love, but to grope darkling in the brightest noonday, to walk warily, shutting up the yearning heart within you, in jealous fear. It is hard to make this second beginning--hard to fight and struggle blindly against this sad necessity--yet the poor heart yields at last; either to put on the self-wounding mail of doubt and suspicion, or to live in dim and mournful patience, a hermit all its days.