CHAPTER VIII.

Oh! wherefore should I busk my heid? Oh! wherefore should I kame my hair? When my true love has me forsook, And says he’ll never loe me mair. Oh, Mart’mas wind! when wilt thou blaw And shake the dead leaves aff the tree? Oh, gentle death! when wilt thou come And take a life that wearies me?--OLD BALLAD.

I took little note of how months or weeks went after that era. I lost that summer time. It has fallen entirely from the reckoning of my life, leaving only some vestiges of what looks now like incipient madness behind; for I was entirely alone; shut out as much from that ordinary communication with the world, which painfully and beneficially compels the suppression of one’s agony, as I was from all human sympathy, all kindness, all compassion. I had lost all; my dreams of a brighter home--my friends--all were gone. Hew Murray far away in India, and his sad sister Lucy alone in Murrayshaugh--to no others in the wide world could I look for any of those gentle offices which belong to friendship; and the one was thousands of miles away--the other was no less solitary, no less stricken than I.

I did not see her during the whole of that summer. Had there been no cloud overshadowing her own lot, I believe I might have sought the balm of Lucy’s pity, and perhaps been in some degree comforted; but as it was I never sought to see her--I saw no one--I shut myself up through those scorching summer days--I remember yet how their unpitying sunshine sickened me to the very soul--in this solitary room. I wandered ghost-like on the water-side at night; I neglected everything that I had formerly attended to. I held no communication even with the servants of my lonely household, which I could possibly avoid. It was little wonder that they should think me crazed; the belief shot in upon my own brain sometimes like an arrow--almost the consciousness that I was mad.

I might have been--how soon I know not--but that I was mercifully snatched from the edge of the precipice.

The summer was over, the autumn days were darkening and growing chill, and the wan water of Fendie carried showers of faded leaves upon its bosom, and grew husky and dark with frequent floods. The transition from the fierce summer sunlight soothed me. These six terrible months had done on me the work of years. I was young--almost a lad still--but I had always been older than my years, and pain brings with it unenviable maturity. In my solitude I felt untimely age come upon me; I carried in my youth’s frame a man’s worn-out heart.

My housekeeper, Nancy Mense, suffered no one to come near me but herself; and her own services were rendered in silence, with something of that compassionating awe, which we hear is paid to the victims of mental malady in the East. I had never observed this until the day of which I am about to speak.

It was a dim, cloudy October day, overcast with showers, and I was subdued and softened; the drooping, disconsolate sky and damp air seemed to hush the fiery pains within me. Mrs Mense entered my apartment, and, without speaking, laid a letter upon the table. I noticed a painful solicitude in her face, as she looked at me before she left the room; I took up the letter--it was from Lucy Murray.

“We shall be far away before you receive this, Adam. I write, because hereafter you might think I did you wrong in sending you no farewell. Of our own affairs I can tell you little, even if _now_ you cared to hear of them. I can guess that my father gives up almost all he has; all the land, everything but a bare pittance that will merely maintain us--and the house. He has not parted with Murrayshaugh itself. He vows he never will--but utterly reduced in means as we must be, we must leave it now--perhaps--perhaps sometime, if good days ever come, to return home again.

“I dare not tell you where we are going; indeed, I do not even know. You know my father’s harsh and haughty pride; he says no one shall see our poverty who has ever heard our name before. He might have lingered longer, I believe, had I not told him of your generous offer; he took it, as I fancied he would, with hard and bitter anger as a humiliation. Yet thank you again, Adam, for thus cheering me, when the world indeed was black enough around us.

“For yourself, what can I say, Adam Graeme? that you are not alone; but alas! that is small consolation. Who can tell the appointed place which this trial has in the lives of each of us, the appointed purpose for which it has been sent? Adam, let us not look upon those wrecks of the vain dreams we fancied true; all is not untrue, though these are; all is not dark because these lights have failed. The feverish flashing of these meteors is gone for ever; but there remains the sober, stedfast, healthful light of day, the sunshine of heaven over all.

“Adam, let us awake; let us think no longer of those who have done us wrong, but of Him who took so grievous wrong upon Himself for our deliverance. It is not meet that the lives for which he paid so wonderful a price should go down ignobly to the grave; do I need to say more to you? do I need to do more than bid you arise, Adam, for His sake, and do the devoir of a man, whether He send sunshine or gloom, a dark day or a bright.

“I have only one word to say more; be careful, Adam: look well to your words and deeds, lest the tempter take advantage of them to bring more sin among us. I cannot venture to speak more plainly, but as you would have others--others whom both of us have held very dear--preserved from a deadly snare and sin, look heedfully to yourself, and let this wild grief engross you no more.

“Write to Hew; and remember us all if we never meet again. Farewell, Adam, and farewell.

“LUCY MURRAY.”

* * * * *

I was roused by Lucy’s letter, roused in some degree to remember my manhood, and to think how I wasted it; but one struggle does not overcome a grief like this. So I fell into a bitterly selfish mood, contrasting her lot with mine--her cold womanlike submission with my self-torture--and while I thought of the conclusion of her letter, with a certain degree of idle languid wonder, I hugged my calamity closer to my heart. No one had fallen from so bright a heaven into so blank an earth as I; no one had ever equalled my misfortune, and who but myself could comprehend my grief.

The wailing breeze suited me; I opened the window and leaned out, resting my brow upon my hands. Heavy raindrops fell from the eaves upon my unsheltered head--I did not heed them.

The sound of voices below arrested my attention; I remember wondering that they did. No later than the day before they would have made me shrink into myself jealously, in fear of contact with the speakers; now I only remained still and listened.

“My good woman, I want to see Mr Graeme,” said a strange voice; “I assure you I will take no denial from _you_, so it is needless to keep me here on the damp soil--my feet are quite wet enough already.”

“Your feet are nae concern o’ mine,” said Mrs Mense, with some ill-humour in her tone; “nae doubt ye can change them when ye gang hame, like other folk. But my maister’s no heeding about seeing strangers; and sae I tell ye--no meaning ony disrespect--once for a’.”

“But your master does not choose to let you answer for him, I presume,” said the stranger. “You can surely ask him at least.”

“And wha has as guid a right to answer for him, puir lad!” said Mrs Mense, her voice sinking to an under-tone, “as me, that have fended for him a’ his days? I tell ye there’s nae need for asking, Sir; I ken weel enough he’ll no see onybody.”

“This is insufferable!” said the applicant for admission. “Here, my good girl, do _you_ go and tell your master that I want particularly to speak with him--I, Doctor Pulvers of Edinburgh.”

“Eh, I daurna for my life!” exclaimed the shriller voice of Janet, Mrs Mense’s niece; “I wadna face Mossgray for--”

“Haud your peace, ye silly tawpie!” cried Mrs Mense. “Do ye mean to say _that’s_ like a gentleman, speiring at the fuil of a gilpie, and me here?”

“Don’t be afraid, my girl,” said the stranger. “What is it that alarms you for Mossgray?”

“If you say anither word o’ your havers, I’ll fell ye, Jen!” exclaimed my housekeeper, in a voice shrill with passion. Then I heard a slight noise, as if the girl had made her escape.

“Well, Ma’am,” said the stranger, “I hope you’ll condescend to inform me what special reason you have that I should not see your master.”

Mrs Mense seemed to falter.

“I’ve nae special reason, Sir; only if Mossgray doesna heed about seeing strangers, it’s nae business o’ mine or yours either.”

“But why does he object to see strangers?” persisted the pertinacious visitor.

“I didna say he objected; I only said he wasna heeding; and it’s no my place to be aye asking the whys and the wherefores. Maybe you never were no weel, or had a sair heart yoursel? and if a gentleman like the laird canna be fashed wi’ a’ the gangrel bodies that come about the town, naebody has ony business wi’ that.”

“But I am no gangrel body,” said the stranger. “Come now, you have kept me out long enough; if the young man is unwell, that is only another reason why I should see him--I’m a physician.”

“I didna say he was no weel.”

“Then in the name of wonder, what did you say?” exclaimed the stranger. “I shall have serious suspicions, I assure you, my good woman, if you answer me so. Why was the girl afraid to speak to her master? and what do you mean?”

The heavy drops from the eaves had fallen one by one on my head--my hair was wet with them--my brow damp with more painful dew. I rang my bell hurriedly.

“Ye can bide till I come down,” I heard Mrs Mense say, as she shut the door, “and I’ll ask the laird, since ye will hae’t; but ye’ll stay where ye are till I come back again.”

In a minute or two after she appeared at the door of my study; her ruddy face was paled by emotion, and her eyes turned upon me with a painful solicitous look that smote me to the heart.

“What is the matter?” I asked as calmly as I could, “and why do you not bring that man up to me at once, Nancy, instead of keeping him so long at the door?”

Again she looked at me--a conscious, terrified look, which I trembled to interpret.

“Oh, Mossgray! for the Lord’s sake tak tent o’ yoursel! you’re an innocent lad--ye aye were an innocent lad--ye kenna what ill may be brewing. I saw ane that saw Mr Charlie in the toun yestreen--oh, Mr Adam, dinna look sae fearsome!--and if ye canna meet this man--if ye’ve ony fear--just say the word, and I’ll send him away.”

I felt large drops of moisture burst upon my brow; I shuddered through my whole frame; I felt an irresistible inclination to flee away, and escape from all these miseries for ever. I had indeed awakened from my frenzy of grief--and such an awakening!

“Why should I fear to see him?” I asked, the words refusing to come plainly from my stammering tongue. “What is this? Do you think--do you think I am mad?”

She did not answer; but with tears streaming from her eyes she continued to fix that painful, terrified, conscious look upon my face.

I felt my nostril dilate--I felt some bitter scorching tears flood my eyes. Then I became suddenly calm.

“God help me!” I exclaimed in my agony, and my prayer was heard.

I grew calm in a sudden consciousness of restored strength. I thought steadily of Lucy and her warning; of this humble woman here, whose honest heart sorrowed and laboured for me. I was roused--I put my wrongs forth, out of my heart, and committed myself to God.

“Now,” I said, “let him come up.”

My kind housekeeper withdrew, wiping the tears from her cheeks. I saw she had acquired some sort of trembling confidence from my bearing; then I did what I could to make my appearance less conspicuously negligent, and then with a nervous concentrated quietness, I waited for my visitor.

He looked me very steadily in the face, with a singular emphatic look. I did not think at the time what was the meaning of this, or it might have raised a ferment in my veins, and made me appear as they wished me. As it was, I saluted him calmly, gliding at once into my usual manner, and feeling with a consciousness of unspeakable relief, that I was myself again.

“I have been residing in the neighbourhood for a week or two, Mr Graeme,” said my visitor, after introducing himself as Doctor Pulvers of Edinburgh, “and hearing that you were in delicate health, I took the liberty of volunteering a call; that is to say--for I am taking too much credit to myself--some of your friends begged me to do so, expressing themselves very anxious about you.”

“My cousin, Mr Charles Graeme, I presume?” said I. “My friends are not so many that I should have any difficulty in discovering them.”

Doctor Pulvers looked confused. “No, no. Mr Charles, whom I have the pleasure of knowing, is no doubt much attached to you, Mr Graeme; but, to tell the truth, the principal person was a lady--and a very young and charming one, I assure you. Mrs Edward Maxwell.”

It was a lie, I knew, and I contained myself--the person who bore that name was not my Lilias; but I would not have inflicted on Charlie such a pang as shot through my heart, while these words were deliberately pronounced in my ear, for all the evil he had done, and for all he designed to do. This was the application of the touch-stone; my simple unsuspicious wits were miraculously sharpened as I thought--I saw that this was the test.

“Mrs Maxwell is very kind,” I said, and I did not falter.

Then he began to inquire into my symptoms.

“This is quite useless,” I said. “I cannot suppose, Doctor Pulvers, that you can have been in the neighbourhood as you say, without hearing from some benevolent friend the history and origin of any sufferings I may have been enduring. Such as they are, they belong to myself alone, and admit of no probing; but I am glad that I can authorize you to satisfy the sudden anxiety of my friends, by an assurance of my rapidly progressing recovery. I beg you will carry my thanks to all; but symptoms I have none to tell you, unless it were of one or two swellings of indignation which I have been sensible of lately--and that I presume is a tolerably healthful emotion, and one which you are not accustomed to class as a symptom of disease.”

Doctor Pulvers looked annoyed and discomfited, and I became sorry for him; however he changed the subject with admirable art, and had plunged me into a long discursive conversation before I was well aware. He was an intelligent, agreeable man, and I had shut myself out from all society so long, that I forgave him the object of his visit, and would have almost forgotten it, had he not with most delicate tact and _finesse_, when he fancied me completely off my guard, suddenly introduced that name again, which made my whole frame thrill as with a wound, and brought the moisture in cold showers to my brow. He repeated this again and again, but each time I conquered.

At last he rose to leave me.

“Mr Graeme,” he said, offering me his hand, and looking again in my face, but this time with a less singular steadiness of gaze than before, “I assure you I am most happy that I have found you so much better than your friends imagined. I congratulate you heartily on your evident sound health and good constitution; but, if you will permit me to advise, do not try it so severely as you have done, and come yourself, and let all interested in you see how perfectly competent you are on this, and all other matters, to judge for yourself.”

His tone was grave and significant--I believed the man. He was glad that his mission had failed; he was glad that I was not added to the list of his miserable patients. I had strength enough left to part with him in firm calmness--nay, I went further; I accompanied him to the door, and saw him leave Mossgray.

And then--those bitter, scorching, desperate tears of manhood that burned upon my cheek--those convulsive sobs that shook me with their fierce strength--this fearful loneliness, which left me a prey to all the fiery fancies within, and all the secret foes without--“God help me!” I had need.

A sudden fancy took me, as I wrestled fiercely with this fierce affliction. I left the house, and hurried along that side of the grounds of Mossgray which immediately skirts the road--where there was a wall of four or five feet high, lined by old trees, which hung their high foliage over, shadowing the highway below. They were nearly bare then, but under the sombre covert of a group of firs, and taking advantage of the stump of an old ash tree, I ventured to look over. Doctor Pulvers was proceeding at a dignified slow pace along the road, while some one approached hurriedly in the other direction--I looked again; it was Charlie. They must meet immediately beneath the spot where I stood--I drew back among the firs and waited.

“Well, Doctor?”

“You have fortunately been quite misinformed, Mr Charles,” said the constrained voice of the physician. “Your cousin has as perfect possession of his faculties as either you or I. I am glad to be able to inform you of his perfect health. He is not either very robust or very happy, I dare say, and has the good sense and courage not to veil the latter, with false pride or levity, as I have seen many young men do, but his constitution is sound, and his mind elastic. I have not the slightest fear of him.”

There was a dead pause; for a moment or two after, Charlie said not a word. Then he exclaimed, somewhat loudly,--

“Well, of course I am very happy to hear it. The more fool he, to give these gossips the chance of speaking of him so; but Adam was always a sentimental fellow. Of course it is a great satisfaction to me to find it all groundless.”

They passed on. I heard no more of their conversation, nor wished to hear; and I was too thoroughly worn out to be moved by my former passions, either of sorrow or anger. So I took rest--not very quiet nor peaceful, but still more natural and refreshing than I had known for many nights and days.