CHAPTER IX.

There is no light in earth or heaven But the cold light of stars, And the first watch of night is given To the red planet Mars-- Is it the gentle star of love? The star of love and dreams? Ah, no! from that blue tent above A hero’s armour gleams.--LONGFELLOW.

I was roused. I began to understand the necessity of that ruling one’s own spirit which is greater than taking a city. I began to see that my self-martyrdom, with all the indulgence of its pain, was but, in its kind, a selfish pleasure after all, and that the duty before me was not any shutting out of the common mercies of the world, or lingering act of self-torment, but a firm and manly subduing of my sorrow. It is a trial even to make this discovery. It is a hard test of patience, when the soul quivering with its own suffering yearns to plunge into some great matter--to endure, to do, to sacrifice--and feels within its aching veins the spirit of a Xavier, eagerly flying to the painfullest labour, and refusing the solace of usual comfort--to have the blank of a steady endurance offered to it instead; to be compelled to yoke its turbulent might of grief again to the common toils of every day; to put on the usual smile, to draw the usual outer garment of ease and seeming peacefulness over the wild pulses of a wounded heart. I say you shall find more scope for desperate bravery in this than on any louder field of battle; for true it is, and of saddest verity, that there be many men to whom taking a city is a small and light matter, in comparison with the firm ruling of this precious stronghold and violent garrison within; many men who, like the proud Syrian of old, would willingly dare the fiery process of some sudden miracle, but with hearts full of bitter disappointment and pride, would turn from the placid Hebrew waters in which the blessing lay.

I was bound to the stake. I was compelled to rule myself with the iron hand of a despot; to return to all my ordinary occupations; to come and go as I had been wont; to listen and to speak of things and persons whose names sent my blood flooding back upon my heart, in the shivering heats and chills of agony, with an assumption of calm ease and indifference the while terrible to bear. And I did all this, that my only relative might be prevented from dooming me to the prison-house of madness--might be preserved from the sin of unrighteously making himself master of the lands of one by whom he had been regarded as a dearly cherished brother. My lands! I would have given them gladly for the joy of believing that Charlie had not meditated a cruelty like this; but for the sake of my good name, and for his own miserable sake, that his sin should at least go no further than intention, I constrained myself to bear this hard and painful discipline of ordinary life. I could not go away as I longed to do, and in strange lands and among new faces endeavour to forget myself, and the loneliness which was my fate. I was bound first to vindicate myself to our little world, and remove all occasion of evil speaking; for my liberty and my means were both concerned. Had Charlie established his case, I must have lost all.

Edward Maxwell had not gone to India. After _her_ fate was united to his, her father made some exertions to establish them at home. They were shortly going to Glasgow I heard, but as far as I could I shut my ears to their name; and though many mentioned them before me with cruel smiles, there were some who knew more truly the nature of my feelings, and tried to hush the rest. But it is hard to do what I laboured to accomplish. To convince one’s self that the being held highest and most loveworthy through all one’s lifetime has altogether vanished from this earth, though there still remains the external form in which the imagination shrouded so fair and beautiful a spirit. I knew indeed that the Lilias of my fancy had never been, but I could not mourn for her as for one dead.

No, the dead are sure. Our most jealous fears cannot think of change--our utmost misery of grief cannot suppose end of existence to them. I fancy the very death makes them more peculiarly our own; but far other and far bitterer is such a calamity as mine.

I was shortly to prove both.

The Murrays were gone, no one knew whither; a single servant remained in the house, but she could give me no information as to the retreat of her master. I felt that I did wrong to ask her, and when I wrote to Hew, I did not repeat the question.

In the beginning of the year, Hew answered my letter. I remember noticing with sudden fear that the address was not written in his hand; but the long letter within reässured me, and I did not observe, in my eagerness to read it, another brief note which dropped from the enclosure upon the table.

There was a tone of subdued and unexpressed sympathy in the letter which touched me deeply. No one in this world, not even Lucy, could enter into my feelings as Hew could, and what he said was the inferred sorrow of closest friendship; the sympathy which does not speak of your grief, but which enters into your heart, and stands at your own stand-point, and thinks as you think--as you think, but more gently--as you will think when your grief is further away, and in the hushed and quiet land of memory it has become dim and calm.

“Cheerly, Adam,” wrote Hew Murray, “we are becoming men; and if there are harder processes involved in that than in the old disciplines we used to share together, we must nevertheless bear the heavier means for the sake of the greater end. Manlike and masterful as our fathers were, when the old steel breast-plates at Murrayshaugh and Mossgray covered brave hearts beating high to the natural warfare which they carried over the Border. They too must have had foes, less tangible than the rough barons and yeomen of Cumberland, those fighting men of other generations; and I begin to think, Adam, that the natural element of us all is war--active contention, strife of one kind or another--and that we depart from our most healthful state when we lay down our weapons, and endeavour to halt in the inevitable contest. No longer for imprisoned princesses--though there is right good meaning and simple wisdom in these stories of our youth--nor yet any longer for _los_ and fame, but because there is true life and health in the warfare, and because--

“Adam, we have had much and intimate intercourse, but scarcely ever have we spoken together of Him who is the centre of this world’s history, the wonderful Presence that pervades all the changes of its many ages past and to come. But, Adam, because He bids, because He leads, because He himself for the strife and for the victory’s sake was clothed as one of us. It is a wonderful history, that, of this long struggle ascending up to the very source of time, of the good and the evil, the righteousness of heaven, and the sin of earth; and now to mark the individual ways by which we solitary units, thus far down in the stream of the world’s existence, are wakened by so many different obstacles, each in his own separate course, to carry on the warfare. To turn from our idolatry of the false beautiful here, to lawful worship of the true sublime yonder; to take up arms for the Lord’s sake and do valiant service against His enemy and ours, that ancient Titan, Sin. The true work of a man, the great war worthy this humanity, which He shares who saved it.

“I think it is a gracious and blessed thing, Adam, that this natural propensity to strife within us should have so noble an outgate. Do you ever think how we used to dream long ago of delivering Scotland? and there are foes greater than the old Edward scheming against her purity and freedom now. Ah, Adam! you are happy, you are at home, and can do your devoir for our own land and people, while I, a stranger and a sojourner here, can only strive to maintain the ancient honour of our name, and commend our faith to minds which know not how to receive the one religion--the one Lord. I think I am not the kind of stuff which the mission-man should be made of, for continually I yearn for home.

“You do not tell me if you saw Lucy before she left Murrayshaugh; and I want to ask you a delicate question, Adam, which I should not put to any one whom I trusted less entirely--Charlie Graeme--what of him? Lucy does not speak of him as she once did; her last letter indeed intimates vaguely, that from the change in her own feelings towards him she has seen it necessary to break the engagement between them. Do you know anything of this? Whether Lucy is sinned against or sinning, I cannot tell--from her letter I should fancy the latter; though certainly she is the last person in the world whom I could think of as likely to change.”

* * * * *

Poor Lucy!--in her solitary bravery, her woman’s pride, she was stouter of heart than I.

My spirit rose to the encouraging words of Hew. I too had been thinking more of late of the true end and aim of life; that momentous matter which always stands out in the twilight of grief, sometimes indeed arrayed in fantastic lights and shadows, but sometimes distinct and clear as it has been revealed. I had begun to discover how much my wayward soul was out of tune with the infinite mind disclosed to us in revelation, and the harmonious universe around. The warfare was begun within me. Hew Murray’s letter was such as I needed; it stirred me to better things, it made me ashamed of my indolent brooding, my cumbering of the ground.

As I laid it down, I remarked the note which had fallen from its enclosure, and took it up with some curiosity. The handwriting was strange to me, and the first words made me start in the utmost alarm and terror--the remainder smote me down into the blank of utter grief.

* * * * *

“Sir,

“Finding the enclosed letter addressed to you among Mr Murray’s papers, and having heard him speak of you often as a much-valued friend, I think it my duty to inform you of a most unhappy occurrence which, if it has not already resulted in death, must have placed him in the utmost danger, and made his ultimate fate almost certain. A short time ago, Mr Murray was despatched on a political mission to the Rajah of ----, whom, it was thought, his firm and energetic character would especially qualify him for dealing with. The Rajah is an artful, wily, dangerous man, and Mr Murray knew before setting out that the mission was of a perilous nature. But our unfortunate friend has not been able to reach the place of his destination. Two or three days ago one of his native servants returned here, worn out with fatigue and want. He states that his master has been made prisoner by one of the predatory parties that infest that district, and that when he himself contrived to make his escape, Mr Murray, who had made a very desperate resistance, was entirely overpowered by his captors, who were stripping him of everything he possessed, including costly presents intended for the Rajah. He was severely wounded, and Doolut (the servant) believes that these fierce native bandits would not encumber their retreat with a prisoner so helpless. At the same time, there is a possibility that his life might be preserved (though, I fear, the chances are all against it) in expectation of a ransom. Every effort has been, and will be made, to discover if he still exists, and the place of his imprisonment; though I can give you very little hope of a favourable result. This most unhappy event has occasioned much regret in all circles here, Mr Murray having been, for so young a man, very greatly respected; and I can again assure you that every exertion will be made to discover his fate with certainty.

“I have the honour to be,

“Sir,

“Your most obedient servant,

“R. CHURCHILL.”

* * * * *

The letter dropped from my hands; I was stunned. I had thought of death--in my thankless folly I had almost wooed it for myself--but never had it occurred to me in connection with my young, strong, life-like friends; and Hew--Hew, the dearest, truest, most noble of them all! I groaned aloud in the bitterness of my soul; I had held lightly this terrible hopeless might of death, and now I fell prostrate under its power.

Then I started in a frenzy of hope, to write to the stranger who had sent to me this sad intelligence. I do not know what I said to him; but I remember how I begged and prayed, with involuntary unconscious tears, urging my entreaty aloud in the intensity of my emotion, that nothing should be left undone; that every means that could be used, should be put into immediate operation--that my unknown correspondent would employ agents for me to prosecute the search for Hew. When I had finished, I thought it cold and indifferent--it would not do--I could not be content to depute to mercenary hands such an undertaking as this. I resolved to go myself to India, to seek for my dearest friend.

But in the mean time there was much to be done. I could not leave home without making many arrangements, and losing precious time. So I sent off my letter, and began immediately to prepare for my journey.