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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Elect Lady, by George MacDonald
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Elect Lady
+
+Author: George MacDonald
+
+
+Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8944]
+This file was first posted on August 28, 2003
+Last Updated: April 18, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ELECT LADY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Sandra Brown, and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ELECT LADY
+
+
+_(A Duplex Edition)_
+
+
+By George MacDonald
+
+
+
+
+THE ELECT LADY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+LANDLORD'S DAUGHTER AND TENANT'S SON.
+
+In a kitchen of moderate size, flagged with slate, humble in its
+appointments, yet looking scarcely that of a farmhouse--for there were
+utensils about it indicating necessities more artificial than usually
+grow upon a farm--with the corner of a white deal table between them,
+sat two young people evidently different in rank, and meeting upon no
+level of friendship. The young woman held in her hand a paper, which
+seemed the subject of their conversation. She was about four- or
+five-and-twenty, well grown and not ungraceful, with dark hair, dark
+hazel eyes, and rather large, handsome features, full of intelligence,
+but a little hard, and not a little regnant--as such features must be,
+except after prolonged influence of a heart potent in self-subjugation.
+As to her social expression, it was a mingling of the gentlewoman of
+education, and the farmer's daughter supreme over the household and its
+share in the labor of production.
+
+As to the young man, it would have required a deeper-seeing eye than
+falls to the lot of most observers, not to take him for a weaker nature
+than the young woman; and the deference he showed her as the superior,
+would have enhanced the difficulty of a true judgment. He was tall and
+thin, but plainly in fine health; had a good forehead, and a clear hazel
+eye, not overlarge or prominent, but full of light; a firm mouth, with a
+curious smile; a sun-burned complexion; and a habit when perplexed of
+pinching his upper lip between his finger and thumb, which at the
+present moment he was unconsciously indulging. He was the son of a small
+farmer--in what part of Scotland is of little consequence--and his
+companion for the moment was the daughter of the laird.
+
+"I have glanced over the poem," said the lady, "and it seems to me quite
+up to the average of what you see in print."
+
+"Would that be reason for printing it, ma'am?" asked the man, with
+amused smile.
+
+"It would be for the editor to determine," she answered, not perceiving
+the hinted objection.
+
+"You will remember, ma'am, that I never suggested--indeed I never
+thought of such a thing!"
+
+"I do not forget. It was your mother who drew my attention to the
+verses."
+
+"I must speak to my mother!" he said, in a meditative way.
+
+"You can not object to _my_ seeing your work! She does not show it to
+everybody. It is most creditable to you, such an employment of your
+leisure."
+
+"The poem was never meant for any eyes but my own--except my brother's."
+
+"What was the good of writing it, if no one was to see it?"
+
+"The writing of it, ma'am."
+
+"For the exercise, you mean?"
+
+"No; I hardly mean that."
+
+"I am afraid then I do not understand you."
+
+"Do _you_ never write anything but what you publish?"
+
+"Publish! _I_ never publish! What made you think of such a thing?"
+
+"That you know so much about it, ma'am."
+
+"I know people connected with the papers, and thought it might encourage
+you to see something in print. The newspapers publish so many poems
+now!"
+
+"I wish it hadn't been just that one my mother gave you!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"For one thing, it is not finished--as you will see when you read it
+more carefully."
+
+"I did see a line I thought hardly rhythmical, but--"
+
+"Excuse me, ma'am; the want of rhythm there was intentional."
+
+"I am sorry for that. Intention is the worst possible excuse for wrong!
+The accent should always be made to fall in the right place."
+
+"Beyond a doubt--but might not the right place alter with the sense?"
+
+"Never. The rule is strict"
+
+"Is there no danger of making the verse monotonous?"
+
+"Not that I know."
+
+"I have an idea, ma'am, that our great poets owe much of their music to
+the liberties they take with the rhythm. They treat the rule as its
+masters, and break it when they see fit."
+
+"You must be wrong there! But in any case you must not presume to take
+the liberties of a great poet."
+
+"It is a poor reward for being a great poet to be allowed to take
+liberties. I should say that, doing their work to the best of their
+power, they were rewarded with the discovery of higher laws of verse.
+Every one must walk by the light given him. By the rules which others
+have laid down he may learn to walk; but once his heart is awake to
+truth, and his ear to measure, melody and harmony, he must walk by the
+light, and the music God gives him."
+
+"That is dangerous doctrine, Andrew!" said the lady, with a superior
+smile. "But," she continued, "I will mark what faults I see, and point
+them out to you."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am, but please do not send the verses anywhere."
+
+"I will not, except I find them worthy. You need not be afraid. For my
+father's sake I will have an eye to your reputation."
+
+"I am obliged to you, ma'am," returned Andrew, but with his curious
+smile, hard to describe. It had in it a wonderful mixing of sweetness
+and humor, and a something that seemed to sit miles above his amusement.
+A heavenly smile it was, knowing too much to be angry. It had in it
+neither offense nor scorn. In respect of his poetry he was shy like a
+girl, but he showed no rejection of the patronage forced upon him by the
+lady.
+
+He rose and stood a moment.
+
+"Well, Andrew, what is it?"
+
+"When will you allow me to call for the verses?"
+
+"In the course of a week or so. By that time I shall have made up my
+mind. If in doubt, I shall ask my father."
+
+"I wouldn't like the laird to think I spend my time on poetry."
+
+"You write poetry, Andrew! A man should not do what he would not have
+known."
+
+"That is true, ma'am; I only feared an erroneous conclusion."
+
+"I will take care of that. My father knows that you are a hard-working
+young man. There is not one of his farms in better order than yours.
+Were it otherwise, I should not be so interested in your poetry."
+
+Andrew wished her less interested in it. To have his verses read was
+like having a finger poked in his eye. He had not known that his mother
+looked at his papers. But he showed little sign of his annoyance, bade
+the lady good-morning, and left the kitchen.
+
+Miss Fordyce followed him to the door, and stood for a moment looking
+out. In front of her was a paved court, surrounded with low buildings,
+between two of which was visible, at the distance of a mile or so, a
+railway line where it approached a viaduct. She heard the sound of a
+coming train, and who in a country place will not stand to see one pass!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+AN ACCIDENT.
+
+While the two were talking, a long train, part carriages, part trucks,
+was rattling through a dreary country, where it could never have been
+were there not regions very different on both sides of it. For miles in
+any direction, nothing but humpy moorland was to be seen, a gathering of
+low hills, with now and then a higher one, its sides broken by
+occasional torrents, in poor likeness of a mountain. No smoke proclaimed
+the presence of human dwelling; but there were spots between the hills
+where the hand of man had helped the birth of a feeble fertility; and in
+front was a small but productive valley, on the edge of which stood the
+ancient house of Potlurg, with the heath behind it: over a narrow branch
+of this valley went the viaduct.
+
+It was a slow train, with few passengers. Of these one was looking from
+his window with a vague, foolish sense of superiority, thinking what a
+forgotten, scarce created country it seemed. He was a well-dressed,
+good-looking fellow, with a keen but pale-gray eye, and a fine forehead,
+but a chin such as is held to indicate weakness. More than one, however,
+of the strongest women I have known, were defective in chin. The young
+man was in the only first-class carriage of the train, and alone in it.
+Dressed in a gray suit, he was a little too particular in the smaller
+points of his attire, and lacked in consequence something of the look of
+a gentleman. Every now and then he would take off his hard round hat,
+and pass a white left hand through his short-cut mousey hair, while his
+right caressed a far longer mustache, in which he seemed interested. A
+certain indescribable heaviness and lack of light characterized his pale
+face.
+
+It was a lovely day in early June. The air was rather cold, but youth
+and health care little about temperature on a holiday, with the sun
+shining, and that sweetest sense--to such at least as are ordinarily
+bound by routine--of having nothing to do. To many men and women the
+greatest trouble is to choose, for self is the hardest of masters to
+please; but as yet George Crawford had not been troubled with much
+choosing.
+
+A crowded town behind him, the loneliness he looked upon was a pleasure
+to him. Compelled to spend time in it, without the sense of being on the
+way out of it, his own company would soon have grown irksome to him; for
+however much men may be interested in themselves, there are few indeed
+who are interesting to themselves. Those only whose self is aware of a
+higher presence can escape becoming bores and disgusts to themselves.
+That every man is endlessly greater than what he calls himself, must
+seem a paradox to the ignorant and dull, but a universe would be
+impossible without it. George had not arrived at the discovery of this
+fact, and yet was for the present contented both with himself and with
+his circumstances.
+
+The heather was not in bloom, and the few flowers of the heathy land
+made no show. Brown and darker brown predominated, with here and there a
+shadow of green; and, weary of his outlook, George was settling back to
+his book, when there came a great bang and a tearing sound. He started
+to his feet, and for hours knew nothing more. A truck had run off the
+line and turned over; the carriage in which he was had followed it, and
+one of the young man's legs was broken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+HELP.
+
+"Papa! papa! there is an accident on the line!" cried Miss Fordyce,
+running into her father's study, where he sat surrounded with books. "I
+saw it from the door!"
+
+"Hush!" returned the old man, and listened. "I hear the train going on,"
+he said, after a moment.
+
+"Part of it is come to grief, I am certain," answered his daughter. "I
+saw something fall."
+
+"Well, my dear?"
+
+"What _shall_ we do?"
+
+"What would you have us do?" rejoined her father, without a movement
+toward rising. "It is too far off for us to be of any use."
+
+"We ought to go and see."
+
+"I am not fond of such seeing, Alexa, and will not go out of my way for
+it. The misery I can not avoid is enough for me."
+
+But Alexa was out of the room, and in a moment more was running, in as
+straight a line as she could keep, across the heath to the low
+embankment. Andrew caught sight of her running. He could not see the
+line, but convinced that something was the matter, turned and ran in the
+same direction.
+
+It was a hard and long run for Alexa, over such ground. Troubled at her
+father's indifference, she ran the faster--too fast for thinking, but
+not too fast for the thoughts that came of themselves. What had come to
+her father? Their house was the nearest! She could not shut out the
+conviction that, since succeeding to the property, he had been growing
+less and less neighborly.
+
+She had caught up a bottle of brandy, which impeded her running. Yet she
+made good speed, her dress gathered high in the other hand. Her long
+dark hair broken loose and flying in the wind, her assumed dignity
+forgotten, and only the woman awake, she ran like a deer over the
+heather, and in little more than a quarter of an hour, though it was a
+long moor-mile, reached the embankment, flushed and panting.
+
+Some of the carriages had rolled down, and the rails were a wreck. But
+the engine and half the train had kept on: neither driver nor stoker was
+hurt, and they were hurrying to fetch help from the next station. At the
+foot of the bank lay George Crawford insensible, with the guard of the
+train doing what he could to bring him to consciousness. He was on his
+back, pale as death, with no motion and scare a sign of life.
+
+Alexa tried to give him brandy, but she was so exhausted, and her hand
+shook so, that she had to yield the bottle to the guard, and, hale and
+strong as she was, could but drag herself a little apart before she
+fainted.
+
+In the meantime, as the train approached the station, the driver, who
+belonged to the neighborhood, saw the doctor, slackened speed, and set
+his whistle shrieking wildly. The doctor set spurs to his horse, and
+came straight over everything to his side.
+
+"You go on," he said, having heard what had happened; "I shall be there
+sooner than you could take me."
+
+He came first upon Andrew trying to make Miss Fordyce swallow a little
+of the brandy.
+
+"There's but one gentleman hurt, sir," said the guard. "The other's only
+a young lady that's run till she's dropped."
+
+"To bring brandy," supplemented Andrew.
+
+The doctor recognized Alexa, and wondered what reception her lather
+would give his patient, for to Potlurg he must go! Suddenly she came to
+herself, and sat up, gazing wildly around. "Out of breath, Miss Fordyce;
+nothing worse!" said the doctor, and she smiled.
+
+He turned to the young man, and did for him what he could without
+splints or bandages; then, with the help of the guard and Andrew,
+constructed, from pieces of the broken carriages, a sort of litter on
+which to carry him to Potlurg.
+
+"Is he dead?" asked Alexa.
+
+"Not a bit of it. He's had a bad blow on the head, though. We must get
+him somewhere as fast as we can!"
+
+"Do you know him?"
+
+"Not I. But we must take him to your house. I don't know what else to do
+with him!"
+
+"What else should you want to do with him?"
+
+"I was afraid it might bother the laird."
+
+"You scarcely know my father, Doctor Pratt!"
+
+"It would bother most people to have a wounded man quartered on them for
+weeks!" returned the doctor. "Poor fellow! A good-looking fellow too!"
+
+A countryman who had been in the next carriage, but had escaped almost
+unhurt, offering his service, Andrew and he took up the litter gently,
+and set out walking with care, the doctor on one side, leading his
+horse, and Miss Fordyce on the other.
+
+It was a strange building to which, after no small anxiety, they drew
+near; nor did it look the less strange the nearer they came. It was
+unsheltered by a single tree; and but for a low wall and iron rail on
+one side, inclosing what had been a garden, but was now a grass-plot, it
+rose straight out of the heather. From this plot the ground sloped to
+the valley, and was under careful cultivation. The entrance to it was
+closed with a gate of wrought iron, of good workmanship, but so wasted
+with rust that it seemed on the point of vanishing. Here at one time had
+been the way into the house; but no door, and scarce a window, was now
+to be seen on this side of the building. It was very old, and consisted
+of three gables, a great half-round between two of them, and a low tower
+with a conical roof.
+
+Crawford had begun to recover consciousness, but when he came to himself
+he was received by acute pain. The least attempt to move was torture,
+and again he fainted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+THE LAIRD.
+
+Conducted by the lady, they passed round the house to the court, and
+across the court to a door in one of the gables. It was a low, narrow
+door, but large enough for the man that stood there--a little man, with
+colorless face, and quiet, abstracted look. His eyes were cold and keen,
+his features small, delicate, and regular. He had an erect little back,
+and was dressed in a long-tailed coat, looking not much of a laird, and
+less of a farmer, as he stood framed in the gray stone wall, in which
+odd little windows, dotted here and there at all heights and distances,
+revealed a wonderful arrangement of floors and rooms inside.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Fordyce!" said the doctor. "This is a bad business,
+but it might have been worse! Not a soul injured but one!"
+
+"Souls don't commonly get injured by accident!" returned the laird, with
+a cold smile that was far from discourteous. "Stick to the body, doctor!
+There you know something!"
+
+"It's a truth, laird!" answered the doctor--but added to himself--"Well!
+it's awful to hear the truth from some mouths!"
+
+The laird spoke no word of objection or of welcome. They carried the
+poor fellow into the house, following its mistress to a room, where,
+with the help of her one domestic, and instructed by the doctor, she
+soon had a bed prepared for him. Then away rode the doctor at full speed
+to fetch the appliances necessary, leaving the laird standing by the
+bed, with a look of mild dissatisfaction, but not a whisper of
+opposition.
+
+It was the guest-chamber to which George Crawford had been carried, a
+room far more comfortable than a stranger might, from the aspect of the
+house, have believed possible. Everything in it was old-fashioned, and,
+having been dismantled, it was not in apple-pie order; but it was
+rapidly and silently restored to its humble ideal; and when the doctor,
+after an incredibly brief absence, returned with his assistant, he
+seemed both surprised and pleased at the change.
+
+"He must have some one to sit up with him, Miss Fordyce," he said, when
+all was done.
+
+"I will myself," she answered. "But you must give me exact directions,
+for I have done no nursing."
+
+"If you will walk a little way with me, I will tell you all you need
+know. He will sleep now, I think--at least till you get back: I shall
+not keep you beyond a few minutes. It is not a very awkward fracture,"
+he continued, as they went. "It might have been much worse! We shall
+have him about in a few weeks. But he will want the greatest care while
+the bones are uniting."
+
+The laird turned from the bed, and went to his study, where he walked up
+and down, lost and old and pale, the very Bibliad of the room with its
+ancient volumes all around. Whatever his eyes fell upon, he turned from,
+as if he had no longer any pleasure in it, and presently stole back to
+the room where the sufferer lay. On tiptoe, with a caution suggestive of
+a wild beast asleep, he crept to the bed, looked down on his unwelcome
+guest with an expression of sympathy crossed with dislike, and shook his
+head slowly and solemnly, like one injured but forgiving.
+
+His eye fell on the young man's pocket-book. It had fallen from his coat
+as they undressed him, and was on a table by the bedside. He caught it
+up just ere Alexa reentered.
+
+"How is he, father?" she asked.
+
+"He is fast asleep," answered the laid. "How long does the doctor think
+he will have to be here?"
+
+"I did not ask him," she replied.
+
+"That was an oversight, my child," he returned. "It is of consequence we
+should know the moment of his removal."
+
+"We shall know it in good time. The doctor called it an affair of
+weeks--or months--I forget. But you shall not be troubled, father. I
+will attend to him."
+
+"But I _am_ troubled, Alexa! You do not know how little money I have!"
+
+Again he retired--slowly, shut his door, locked it, and began to search
+the pocket-book. He found certain banknotes, and made a discovery
+concerning its owner.
+
+With the help of her old woman, and noiselessly, while Crawford lay in a
+half slumber, Alexa continued making the chamber more comfortable.
+Chintz curtains veiled the windows, which, for all their narrowness, had
+admitted too much light; and an old carpet deadened the sound of
+footsteps on the creaking boards--for the bones of a house do not grow
+silent with age; a fire burned in the antique grate, and was a soul to
+the chamber, which was chilly, looking to the north, with walls so thick
+that it took half the summer to warm them through. Old Meg, moving to
+and fro, kept shaking her head like her master, as if she also were in
+the secret of some house-misery; but she was only indulging the funereal
+temperament of an ancient woman. As Alexa ran through the heather in the
+morning, she looked not altogether unlike a peasant; her shoes were
+strong, her dress was short; but now she came and went in a soft-colored
+gown, neither ill-made nor unbecoming. She did not seem to belong to
+what is called society, but she looked dignified, at times almost
+stately, with an expression of superiority, not strong enough to make
+her handsome face unpleasing. It resembled her father's, but, for a
+woman's, was cast in a larger mold.
+
+The day crept on. The invalid was feverish. His nurse obeyed the doctor
+minutely, to a single drop. She had her tea brought her, but when the
+supper hour arrived went to join her father in the kitchen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+AFTER SUPPER.
+
+They always eat in the kitchen. Strange to say, there was no dining-room
+in the house, though there was a sweetly old-fashioned drawing-room. The
+servant was with the sufferer, but Alexa was too much in the sick-room,
+notwithstanding, to know that she was eating her porridge and milk. The
+laird partook but sparingly, on the ground that the fare tended to
+fatness, which affliction of age he congratulated himself on having
+hitherto escaped. They eat in silence, but not a glance of her father
+that might indicate a want escaped the daughter. When the meal was
+ended, and the old man had given thanks, Alexa put on the table a big
+black Bible, which her father took with solemn face and reverent
+gesture. In the course of his nightly reading of the New Testament, he
+had come to the twelfth chapter of St. Luke, with the Lord's parable of
+the rich man whose soul they required of him: he read it beautifully,
+with an expression that seemed to indicate a sense of the Lord's meaning
+what He said.
+
+"We will omit the psalm this evening--for the sake of the sufferer," he
+said, having ended the chapter. "The Lord will have mercy and not
+sacrifice."
+
+They rose from their chairs and knelt on the stone floor. The old man
+prayed with much tone and expression, and I think meant all he said,
+though none of it seemed to spring from fresh need or new thankfulness,
+for he used only the old stock phrases, which flowed freely from his
+lips. He dwelt much on the merits of the Saviour; he humbled himself as
+the chief of sinners, whom it must be a satisfaction to God to cut off,
+but a greater satisfaction to spare for the sake of one whom he loved.
+Plainly the man counted it a most important thing to stand well with Him
+who had created him. When they rose, Alexa looked formally solemn, but
+the wan face of her father shone: the Psyche, if not the Ego, had
+prayed--and felt comfortable. He sat down, and looked fixedly, as if
+into eternity, but perhaps it was into vacancy; they are much the same
+to most people.
+
+"Come into the study for a moment, Lexy, if you please," he said, rising
+at length. His politeness to his daughter, and indeed to all that came
+near him, was one of the most notable points in his behavior.
+
+Alexa followed the black, slender, erect little figure up the stair,
+which consisted of about a dozen steps, filling the entrance from wall
+to wall, a width of some twelve feet. Between it and the outer door
+there was but room for the door of the kitchen on the one hand, and that
+of a small closet on the other. At the top was a wide space, a sort of
+irregular hall, more like an out-of-door court, paved with large flat
+stones into which projected the other side of the rounded mass, bordered
+by the grassy inclosure.
+
+The laird turned to the right, and through a door into a room which had
+but one small window hidden by bookcases. Naturally it smelled musty, of
+old books and decayed bindings, an odor not unpleasant to some nostrils.
+He closed the door behind him, placed a chair for his daughter, and set
+himself in another by a deal table, upon which were books and papers.
+
+"This is a sore trial, Alexa!" he said with a sigh.
+
+"It is indeed, father--for the poor young man!" she returned.
+
+"True; but it would be selfish indeed to regard the greatness of his
+suffering as rendering our trial the less. It is to us a more serious
+matter than you seem to think. It will cost much more than, in the
+present state of my finances, I can afford to pay. You little think--"
+
+"But, father," interrupted Alexa, "how could we help it?"
+
+"He might have been carried elsewhere!"
+
+"With me standing there! Surely not, father! Even Andrew Ingram offered
+to receive him."
+
+"Why did he not take him then?"
+
+"The doctor wouldn't hear of it. And I wouldn't hear of it either."
+
+"It was ill-considered, Lexy. But what's done is done--though, alas! not
+paid for."
+
+"We must take the luck as it comes, father!"
+
+"Alexa," rejoined the laird with solemnity, "you ought never to mention
+luck. There is no such thing. It was either for the young man's sins, or
+to prevent worse, or for necessary discipline, that the train was
+overturned. The cause is known to _Him_. All are in His hands--and we
+must beware of attempting to take any out of His hands, for it can not
+be done."
+
+"Then, father, if there be no chance, our part was ordered too. So there
+is the young man in our spare room, and we must receive our share of the
+trouble as from the hand of the Lord."
+
+"Certainly, my dear! it was the expense I was thinking of. I was only
+lamenting--bear me witness, I was not opposing--the will of the Lord. A
+man's natural feelings remain."
+
+"If the thing is not to be helped, let us think no more about it!"
+
+"It is the expense, my dear! Will you not let your mind rest for a
+moment upon the fact? I am doing my utmost to impress it upon you. For
+other expenses there is always something to show; for this there will be
+nothing, positively nothing!"
+
+"Not the mended leg, father?"
+
+"The money will vanish, I tell you, as a tale that is told."
+
+"It is our life that vanishes that way!"
+
+"The simile suits either. So long as we do not use the words of
+Scripture irreverently, there is no harm in making a different
+application of them. There is no irreverence here: next to the grace of
+God, money is the thing hardest to get and hardest to keep. If we are
+not wise with it, the grace--I mean money--will not go far."
+
+"Not so far as the next world, anyhow!" said Alexa, as if to herself.
+
+"How dare you, child! The Redeemer tells us to make friends of the
+mammon of unrighteousness, that when we die it may receive us into
+everlasting habitations!"
+
+"I read the passage this morning, father: it is _they_, not _it_, will
+receive you. And I have heard that it ought to be translated, 'make
+friends _with_, or _by means of_ the mammon of unrighteousness."
+
+"I will reconsider the passage. We must not lightly change even the
+translated word!"
+
+The laird had never thought that it might be of consequence to him one
+day to have friends in the other world. Neither had he reflected that
+the Lord did not regard the obligation of gratitude as ceasing with this
+life.
+
+Alexa had reason to fear that her father made a friend _of_, and never a
+friend _with_ the mammon of unrighteousness. At the same time the
+half-penny he put in the plate every Sunday must go a long way if it was
+not estimated, like that of the poor widow, according to the amount he
+possessed, but according to the difficulty he found in parting with it.
+
+"After weeks, perhaps months of nursing and food and doctor's stuff,"
+resumed the laird, "he will walk away, and we shall see not a plack of
+the money he carries with him. The visible will become the invisible,
+the present the absent!"
+
+"The little it will cost you, father--"
+
+"Hold there, my child! If you call any cost little, I will not hear a
+word more: we should be but running a race from different points to
+different goals! It will cost--that is enough! How much it will cost
+_me_, you can not calculate, for you do not know what money stands for
+in my eyes. There are things before which money is insignificant!"
+
+"Those dreary old books!" said Alexa to herself, casting a glance on the
+shelves that filled the room from floor to ceiling, and from wall to
+wall.
+
+"What I was going to say, father," she returned, "was, that I have a
+little money of my own, and this affair shall cost you nothing. Leave me
+to contrive. Would you tell him his friends must pay his board, or take
+him away? It would be a nice anecdote in the annals of the Fordyces of
+Potlurg!"
+
+"At the same time, what more natural?" rejoined her father. "His friends
+must in any case be applied to! I learn from his pocket-book--"
+
+"Father!"
+
+"Content yourself, Alexa. I have a right to know whom I receive under my
+roof. Besides, have I not learned thereby that the youth is a sort of
+connection!"
+
+"You don't mean it, father?"
+
+"I do mean it. His mother and yours were first cousins."
+
+"That is not a connection; it's a close kinship!"
+
+"Is it?" said the laird, dryly.
+
+"Anyhow," pursued Alexa, "I give you my word you shall hear nothing more
+of the expense."
+
+She bade her father good-night, and returning to the bedside of her
+patient, released Meg.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+ABOUT THE LAIRD.
+
+Thomas Fordyce was a sucker from the root of a very old family tree,
+born in poverty, and, with great pinching of father and mother, brothers
+and sisters, educated for the Church. But from pleasure in scholarship,
+from archaeological tastes, a passion for the arcana of history, and a
+love of literature, strong, although not of the highest kind, he had
+settled down as a school-master, and in his calling had excelled. By all
+who knew him he was regarded as an accomplished, amiable, and worthy
+man.
+
+When his years were verging on the undefined close of middle age he saw
+the lives between him and the family property, one by one wither at the
+touch of death, until at last there was no one but himself and his
+daughter to succeed. He was at the time the head of a flourishing school
+in a large manufacturing town; and it was not without some regret,
+though with more pleasure, that he yielded his profession and retired to
+Potlurg.
+
+Greatly dwindled as he found the property, and much and long as it had
+been mismanaged, it was yet of considerable value, and worth a wise
+care. The result of the labor he spent upon it was such that it had now
+for years yielded him, if not a large rental, one far larger at least
+than his daughter imagined. But the sinking of the school-master in the
+laird seemed to work ill for the man, and good only for the land. I say
+_seemed_, because what we call degeneracy is often but the unveiling of
+what was there all the time; and the evil we could become, we are. If I
+have in me the tyrant or the miser, there he is, and such am I--as
+surely as if the tyrant or the miser were even now visible to the
+wondering dislike of my neighbors. I do not say the characteristic is so
+strong, or would be so hard to change as by the revealing development it
+must become; but it is there, alive, as an egg is alive; and by no means
+inoperative like a mere germ, but exercising real though occult
+influence on the rest of my character. Therefore, except the growing
+vitality be in process of killing these ova of death, it is for the good
+of the man that they should be so far developed as to show their
+existence. If the man do not then starve and slay them they will drag
+him to the judgment-seat of a fiery indignation.
+
+For the laird, nature could ill replace the human influences that had
+surrounded the school-master; while enlargement both of means and
+leisure enabled him to develop by indulgence a passion for a peculiar
+kind of possession, which, however refined in its objects, was yet but a
+branch of the worship of Mammon. It suits the enemy just as well, I
+presume, that a man should give his soul for coins as for money. In
+consequence he was growing more and more withdrawn, ever filling less
+the part of a man--which is to be a hiding-place from the wind, a covert
+from the tempest. He was more and more for himself, and thereby losing
+his life. Dearly as he loved his daughter, he was, by slow fallings
+away, growing ever less of a companion, less of a comfort, less of a
+necessity to her, and requiring less and less of her for the good or
+ease of his existence. We wrong those near us in being independent of
+them. God himself would not be happy without His Son. We ought to lean
+on each other, giving and receiving--not as weaklings, but as lovers.
+Love is strength as well as need. Alexa was more able to live alone than
+most women; therefore it was the worse for her. Too satisfied with
+herself, too little uneasy when alone, she did not know that then she
+was not in good enough company. She was what most would call a strong
+nature, nor knew what weaknesses belong to, and grow out of, such
+strength as hers.
+
+The remoter scions of a family tree are not seldom those who make most
+account of it; the school-master's daughter knew more about the Fordyces
+of Potlurg, and cared more for their traditions, than any who of later
+years had reaped its advantages or shared its honors. Interest in the
+channel down which one has slid into the world is reasonable, and may be
+elevating; with Alexa it passed beyond good, and wrought for evil. Proud
+of a family with a history, and occasionally noted in the annals of the
+country, she regarded herself as the superior of all with whom she had
+hitherto come into relation. To the poor, to whom she was invariably and
+essentially kind, she was less condescending than to such as came nearer
+her own imagined standing; she was constantly aware that she belonged to
+the elect of the land! Society took its revenge; the rich trades-people
+looked down upon her as the school-master's daughter. Against their
+arrogance her indignation buttressed her lineal with her mental
+superiority. At the last the pride of family is a personal arrogance.
+And now at length she was in her natural position as heiress of Potlurg!
+
+She was religious--if one may be called religious who felt no immediate
+relation to the source of her being. She felt bound to defend, so far as
+she honestly could, the doctrines concerning God and His ways
+transmitted by the elders of her people; to this much, and little more,
+her religion toward God amounted. But she had a strong sense of
+obligation to do what was right.
+
+Her father gave her so little money to spend that she had to be very
+careful with her housekeeping, and they lived in the humblest way. For
+her person she troubled him as little as she could, believing him, from
+the half statements and hints he gave, and his general carriage toward
+life, not a little oppressed by lack of money, nor suspecting his
+necessities created and his difficulties induced by himself. In this
+regard it had come to be understood between them that the produce of the
+poultry-yard was Alexa's own; and to some little store she had thus
+gathered she mainly trusted for the requirements of her invalid. To this
+her father could not object, though he did not like it; he felt what was
+hers to be his more than he felt what was his to be hers.
+
+Alexa had not learned to place value on money beyond its use, but she
+was not therefore free from the service of Mammon; she looked to it as
+to a power essential, not derived; she did not see it as God's creation,
+but merely as an existence, thus making of a creature of God the mammon
+of unrighteousness. She did not, however, cling to it, but was ready to
+spend it. At the same time, had George Crawford looked less handsome or
+less of a gentleman, she would not have been so ready to devote the
+contents of her little secret drawer.
+
+The discovery of her relationship to the young man waked a new feeling.
+She had never had a brother, never known a cousin, and had avoided the
+approach of such young men as, of inferior position in her eyes, had
+sought to be friendly with her; here was one thrown helpless on her
+care, with necessities enough to fill the gap between his real relation
+to her, and that of the brother after whom she had sighed in vain! It
+was a new and delightful sensation to have a family claim on a young
+man--a claim, the material advantage of which was all on his side, the
+devotion all on hers. She was invaded by a flood of tenderness toward
+the man. Was he not her cousin, a gentleman, and helpless as any
+new-born child? Nothing should be wanting that a strong woman could do
+for a powerless man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+THE COUSINS.
+
+George Crawford was in excellent health when the accident occurred, and
+so when he began to recover, his restoration was rapid. The process,
+however, was still long enough to compel the cousins to know more of
+each other than twelve months of ordinary circumstance would have made
+possible.
+
+George, feeling neither the need, nor, therefore, the joy of the new
+relationship so much as Alexa, disappointed her by the coolness of his
+response to her communication of the fact; and as they were both formal,
+that is, less careful as to the reasonable than as to the conventional,
+they were not very ready to fall in love. Such people may learn all
+about each other, and not come near enough for love to be possible
+between them. Some people approximate at once, and at once decline to
+love, remaining friends the rest of their lives. Others love at once;
+and some take a whole married life to come near enough, and at last
+love. But the reactions of need and ministration can hardly fail to
+breed tenderness, and disclose the best points of character.
+
+The cousins were both handsome, and--which was of more consequence--each
+thought the other handsome. They found their religious opinions closely
+coincident--nor any wonder, for they had gone for years to the same
+church every Sunday, had been regularly pumped upon from the same
+reservoir, and had drunk the same arguments concerning things true and
+untrue.
+
+George found that Alexa had plenty of brains, a cultivated judgment, and
+some knowledge of literature; that there was no branch of science with
+which she had not some little acquaintance, in which she did not take
+some small interest. Her father's teaching was beyond any he could have
+procured for her, and what he taught she had learned; for she had a love
+of knowing, a tendency to growth, a capacity for seizing real points,
+though as yet perceiving next to nothing of their relation to human life
+and hope. She believed herself a judge of verse, but in truth her
+knowledge of poetry was limited to its outer forms, of which she had
+made good studies with her father. She had learned the _how_ before the
+_what_, knew the body before the soul--could tell good binding but not
+bad leather--in a word, knew verse but not poetry.
+
+She understood nothing of music, but George did not miss that; he was
+more sorry she did not know French--not for the sake of its literature,
+but because of showing herself an educated woman.
+
+Diligent in business, not fervent in spirit, she was never idle. But
+there are other ways than idleness of wasting time. Alexa was
+continually "improving herself," but it was a big phrase for a small
+matter; she had not learned that to do the will of God is the _only_ way
+to improve one's self. She would have scorned the narrowness of any one
+who told her so, not understanding what the will of God means.
+
+She found that her guest and cousin was a man of some position, and
+wondered that her father should never have mentioned the relationship.
+The fact was that, in a time of poverty, the school-master had made to
+George's father the absurd request of a small loan without security, and
+the banker had behaved as a rich relation and a banker was pretty sure
+to behave.
+
+George occupied a place of trust in the bank, and, though not yet
+admitted to a full knowledge of its more important transactions, hoped
+soon to be made a partner.
+
+When his father came to Potlurg to see him the laird declined to appear,
+and the banker contented himself thereafter with Alexa's bulletins.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+GEORGE AND THE LAIRD.
+
+Alexa's money was nearly exhausted, and most of her chickens had been
+devoured by the flourishing convalescent, but not yet would the doctor
+allow him to return to business.
+
+One night the electric condition of the atmosphere made it heavy, sultry
+and unrefreshing, and George could not sleep. There came a terrible
+burst of thunder; then a bannered spear of vividest lightning seemed to
+lap the house in its flashing folds, and the simultaneous thunder was
+mingled with the sound, as it seemed, of the fall of some part of the
+building. George sat up in bed and listened. All was still. He must rise
+and see what had happened, and whether any one was hurt. He might meet
+Alexa, and a talk with her would be a pleasant episode in his sleepless
+night. He got into his dressing-gown, and taking his stick, walked
+softly from the room.
+
+His door opened immediately on the top of the stair. He stood and
+listened, but was aware of no sequel to the noise. Another flash came,
+and lighted up the space around him, with its walls of many angles. When
+the darkness was returned and the dazzling gone, and while the thunder
+yet bellowed, he caught the glimmer of a light under the door of the
+study, and made his way toward it over the worn slabs. He knocked, but
+there was no answer. He pushed the door, and saw that the light came
+from behind a projecting book-case. He hesitated a moment, and glanced
+about him.
+
+A little clinking sound came from somewhere. He stole nearer the source
+of the light; a thief might be there. He peeped round the end of the
+book-case. With his back to him the laird was kneeling before an open
+chest. He had just counted a few pieces of gold, and was putting them
+away. He turned over his shoulder a face deathly pale, and his eyes for
+a moment stared blank. Then with a shivering smile he rose. He had a
+thin-worn dressing-gown over his night-shirt, and looked a thread of a
+man.
+
+"You take me for a miser?" he said, trembling, and stood expecting an
+answer.
+
+Crawford was bewildered: what business had he there?
+
+"I am _not_ a miser!" resumed the laird. "A man may count his money
+without being a miser!"
+
+He stood and stared, still trembling, at his guest, either too much
+startled or too gentle to find fault with his intrusion.
+
+"I beg your pardon, laird," said George. "I knocked, but receiving no
+answer, feared something was wrong."
+
+"But why are you out of bed--and you an invalid?" returned Mr. Fordyce.
+
+"I heard a heavy fall, and feared the lightning had done some damage."
+
+"We shall see about that in the morning, and in the meantime you had
+better go to bed," said the laird.
+
+They turned together toward the door.
+
+"What a multitude of books, you have, Mr. Fordyce!" remarked George. "I
+had not a notion of such a library in the county!"
+
+"I have been a lover of books all my life," returned the laird. "And
+they gather, they gather!" he added.
+
+"Your love draws them," said George.
+
+"The storm is over, I think," said the laird.
+
+He did not tell his guest that there was scarcely a book on those
+shelves not sought after by book-buyers--not one that was not worth
+money in the book-market. Here and there the dulled gold of a fine
+antique binding returned the gleam of the candle, but any gathering of
+old law or worthless divinity would have looked much the same.
+
+"I should like to glance over them," said George. "There must be some
+valuable volumes among so many!"
+
+"Rubbish! rubbish!" rejoined the old man, testily, almost hustling him
+from the room. "I am ashamed to hear it called a library."
+
+It seemed to Crawford, as again he lay awake in his bed, altogether a
+strange incident. A man may count his money when he pleases, but not the
+less must it seem odd that he should do so in the middle of the night,
+and with such a storm flashing and roaring around him, apparently
+unheeded. The next morning he got his cousin to talk about her father,
+but drew from her nothing to cast light on what he had seen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+IN THE GARDEN.
+
+Of the garden which had been the pride of many owners of the place, only
+a small portion remained. It was strangely antique, haunted with a
+beauty both old and wild, the sort of garden for the children of heaven
+to play in when men sleep.
+
+In a little arbor constructed by an old man who had seen the garden grow
+less and less through successive generations, a tent of honeysuckle in a
+cloak of sweet pease, sat George and Alexa, two highly respectable young
+people, Scots of Scotland, like Jews of Judaea, well satisfied of their
+own worthiness. How they found their talk interesting, I can scarce
+think. I should have expected them to be driven by very dullness to
+love-making; but the one was too prudent to initiate it, the other too
+staid to entice it. Yet, people on the borders of love being on the
+borders of poetry, they had got talking about a certain new poem,
+concerning which George, having read several notices of it, had an
+opinion to give.
+
+"You should tell my father about it, George," said Alexa; "he is the
+best judge I know."
+
+She did not understand that it was a little more than the grammar of
+poetry the school-master had ever given himself to understand. His best
+criticism was to show phrase calling to phrase across gulfs of speech.
+
+The little iron gate, whose hinges were almost gone with rust, creaked
+and gnarred as it slowly opened to admit the approach of a young
+countryman. He advanced with the long, slow, heavy step suggestive of
+nailed shoes; but his hazel eye had an outlook like that of an eagle
+from its eyrie, and seemed to dominate his being, originating rather
+than directing its motions. He had a russet-colored face, much freckled;
+hair so dark red as to be almost brown; a large, well-shaped nose; a
+strong chin; and a mouth of sweetness whose smile was peculiarly its
+own, having in it at once the mystery and the revelation of Andrew
+Ingram. He took off his bonnet as he drew near, and held it as low as
+his knee, while with something of the air of an old-fashioned courtier,
+he stood waiting. His clothes, all but his coat, which was of some blue
+stuff, and his Sunday one, were of a large-ribbed corduroy. For a moment
+no one spoke. He colored a little, but kept silent, his eyes on the
+lady.
+
+"Good-morning, Andrew!" she said at length. "There was something, I
+forget what, you were to call about! Remind me--will you?"
+
+"I did not come before, ma'am, because I knew you were occupied. And
+even now it does not greatly matter."
+
+"Oh, I remember!--the poem! I am very sorry, but I had so much to think
+of that it went quite out of my mind."
+
+An expression half amused, half shy, without trace of mortification, for
+an instant shadowed the young man's face.
+
+"I wish you would let me have the lines again, ma'am! Indeed I should be
+obliged to you!" he said.
+
+"Well, I confess they might first be improved! I read them one evening
+to my father, and he agreed with me that two or three of them were not
+quite rhythmical. But he said it was a fair attempt, and for a
+working-man very creditable."
+
+What Andrew was thinking, it would have been hard to gather from his
+smile; but I believe it was that, if he had himself read the verses
+aloud, the laird would have found no fault with their rhythm. His
+carriage seemed more that of a patient, respectful amusement than
+anything else.
+
+Alexa rose, but resumed her seat, saying:
+
+"As the poem is a religious one, there can be no harm in handing it you
+on Sunday after church!--that is," she added, meaningly, "if you will be
+there!"
+
+"Give it to Dawtie, if you please, ma'am," replied Andrew.
+
+"Ah!" rebuked Miss Fordyce, in a tone almost of rebuke.
+
+"I seldom go to church, ma'am," said Andrew, reddening a little, but
+losing no sweetness from his smile.
+
+"I understand as much! It is very wrong! _Why_ don't you?"
+
+Andrew was silent.
+
+"I wish you to tell me," persisted Alexa, with a peremptoriness which
+came of the school-master. She had known him too as a pupil of her
+father's!
+
+"If you will have it, ma'am, I not only learn nothing from Mr. Smith,
+but I think much that he says is not true."
+
+"Still you ought to go for the sake of example."
+
+"Do wrong to make other people follow my example? Can that be to do
+right?"
+
+"_Wrong_ to go to church! What _do_ you mean? Wrong to pray with your
+fellow-men?"
+
+"Perhaps the hour may come, ma'am, when I shall be able to pray with my
+fellow-men, even though the words they use seem addressed to a tyrant,
+not to the Father of Jesus Christ. But at present I can not. I might
+endure to hear Mr. Smith say evil things concerning God, but the evil
+things he says to God make me quite unable to pray, and I feel like a
+hypocrite!"
+
+"Whatever you may think of Mr. Smith's doctrines, it is presumptuous to
+set yourself up as too good to go to church."
+
+"I most bear the reproach, ma'am. I can not consent to be a hypocrite in
+order to avoid being called one!"
+
+Either Miss Fordyce had no answer to this, or did not choose to give
+any. She was not troubled that Andrew would not go to church, but
+offended at the unhesitating decision with which he set her counsel
+aside. Andrew made her a respectful bow, turned away, put on his bonnet,
+which he had held in his hand all the time, and passed through the
+garden gate.
+
+"Who is the fellow?" asked George, partaking sympathetically of his
+companion's annoyance.
+
+"He is Andrew Ingram, the son of a small farmer, one of my father's
+tenants. He and his brother work with their father on the farm. They are
+quite respectable people. Andrew is conceited, but has his good points.
+He imagines himself a poet, and indeed his work has merit. The worst of
+him is that he sets up for being better than other people."
+
+"Not an unusual fault with the self-educated!"
+
+"He does go on educating himself, I believe, but he had a good start to
+begin with. My father took much pains with him at school. He helped to
+carry you here after the accident--and would have taken you to his
+father's if I would have let him."
+
+George cast on her a look of gratitude.
+
+"Thank you for keeping me," he said. "But I wish I had taken some notice
+of his kindness!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+ANDREW INGRAM.
+
+Of the persons in my narrative, Andrew Ingram is the simplest, therefore
+the hardest to be understood by an ordinary reader. I must take up his
+history from a certain point in his childhood.
+
+One summer evening, he and his brother Sandy were playing together on a
+knoll in one of their father's fields. Andrew was ten years old, and
+Sandy a year younger. The two quarreled, and the spirit of ancestral
+borderers waking in them, they fell to blows. The younger was the
+stronger for his years, and they were punching each other with
+relentless vigor, when suddenly they heard a voice, and stopping their
+fight, saw before them an humble-looking man with a pack on his back. He
+was a peddler known in the neighborhood, and noted for his honesty and
+his silence, but the boys had never seen him. They stood abashed before
+him, dazed with the blows they had received, and not a little ashamed;
+for they were well brought up, their mother being an honest
+disciplinarian, and their father never interfering with what she judged
+right. The sun was near the setting, and shone with level rays full on
+the peddler; but when they thought of him afterward, they seemed to
+remember more light in his face than that of the sun. Their conscience
+bore him witness, and his look awed them. Involuntarily they turned from
+him, seeking refuge with each other: his eyes shone so! they said; but
+immediately they turned to him again.
+
+Sandy knew the pictures in the "Pilgrim's Progress," and Andrew had read
+it through more than once: when they saw the man had a book in his hand,
+open, and heard him, standing there in the sun, begin to read from it,
+they thought it must be Christian, waiting for Evangelist to come to
+him. It is impossible to say how much is fact and how much imagination
+in what children recollect; the one must almost always supplement the
+other; but they were quite sure that the words he read were these: "And
+lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world!" The next thing
+they remembered was their walking slowly down the hill in the red light,
+and all at once waking up to the fact that the man was gone, they did
+not know when or where. But their arms were round each other's necks,
+and they were full of a strange awe. Then Andrew saw something red on
+Sandy's face.
+
+"Eh, Sandy!" he cried, "it's bluid!" and burst into tears.
+
+It was his own blood, not Sandy's!--the discovery of which fact relieved
+Andrew, and did not so greatly discompose Sandy, who was less sensitive.
+
+They began at length to speculate on what had happened. One thing was
+clear: it was because they were fighting that the man had come; but it
+was not so clear who the man was. He could not be Christian, because
+Christian went over the river! Andrew suggested it might have been
+Evangelist, for he seemed to be always about. Sandy added, as his
+contribution to the idea, that he might have picked up Christian's
+bundle and been carrying it home to his wife. They came, however, to the
+conclusion, by no ratiocination, I think, but by a conviction which the
+idea itself brought with it, that the stranger was the Lord himself, and
+that the pack on His back was their sins, which He was carrying away to
+throw out of the world.
+
+"Eh, wasna it fearfu' He should come by jist when we was fechtin'!" said
+Sandy.
+
+"Eh, na! it was a fine thing that! We micht hae been at it yet! But we
+winna noo!--will we ever, Sandy?"
+
+"Na, that we winna!"
+
+"For," continued Andrew, "He said 'Lo, I am with you always!' And
+suppose He werena, we daurna be that ahint His back we would na be afore
+His face!"
+
+"Do you railly think it _was_ Him, Andrew?"
+
+"Weel," replied Andrew, "gien the deevil be goin' aboot like a roarin'
+lion, seekin' whom he may devoor, as father says, it's no likely _He_
+would na be goin' aboot as weel, seekin' to haud him aff o' 's!"
+
+"Ay!" said Sandy.
+
+"And noo," said the elder, "what are we to do?"
+
+For Andrew, whom both father and mother judged the dreamiest of mortals,
+was in reality the most practical being in the whole parish--so
+practical that by and by people mocked him for a poet and a heretic,
+because he did the things which they said they believed. Most
+unpractical must every man appear who genuinely believes in the things
+that are unseen. The man called practical by the men of this world is he
+who busies himself building his house on the sand, while he does not
+even bespeak a lodging in the inevitable beyond.
+
+"What are we to do?" said Andrew. "If the Lord is going about like that,
+looking after us, we've surely got something to do looking after _Him!_"
+
+There was no help in Sandy; and it was well that, with the reticence of
+children, neither thought of laying the case before their parents; the
+traditions of the elders would have ill agreed with the doctrine they
+were now under! Suddenly it came into Andrew's mind that the book they
+read at _worship_ to which he had never listened, told all about Jesus.
+
+He began at the beginning, and grew so interested in the stories that he
+forgot why he had begun to read it One day, however, as he was telling
+Sandy about Jacob--"What a shame!" said Sandy; and Andrew's mind
+suddenly opened to the fact that he had got nothing yet out of the book.
+He threw it from him, echoing Sandy's words, "What's a shame!"--not of
+Jacob's behavior, but of the Bible's, which had all this time told them
+nothing about the man that was going up and down the world, gathering up
+their sins, and carrying them away in His pack! But it dawned upon him
+that it was the New Testament that told about Jesus Christ, and they
+turned to that. Here also I say it was well they asked no advice, for
+they would probably have been directed to the Epistle to the Romans,
+with explanations yet more foreign to the heart of Paul than false to
+his Greek. They began to read the story of Jesus as told by his friend
+Matthew, and when they had ended it, went on to the gospel according to
+Mark. But they had not read far when Sandy cried out:
+
+"Eh, Andrew, it's a' the same thing ower again!"
+
+"No a'thegither," answered Andrew. "We'll gang on, and see!"
+
+Andrew came to the conclusion that it was so far the same that he would
+rather go back and read the other again, for the sake of some particular
+things he wanted to make sure about So the second time they read St.
+Matthew, and came to these words:
+
+"If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall
+ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven."
+
+"There's twa o' 's here!" cried Andrew, laying down the book. "Lat's try
+'t!"
+
+"Try what?" said Sandy.
+
+His brother read the passage again.
+
+"Lat the twa o' 's speir Him for something!" concluded Andrew. "What
+wull't be?"
+
+"I won'er if it means only ance, or may be three times, like 'The Three
+Wishes!'" suggested Sandy, who, like most Christians, would rather have
+a talk about it than do what he was told.
+
+"We _might_ ask for what would not be good for us!" returned Andrew.
+
+"And make fools of ourselves!" assented Sandy, with "The Three Wishes"
+in his mind.
+
+"Do you think He would give it us then?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"But," pursued Andrew, "if we were so foolish as that old man and woman,
+it would be better to find it out, and begin to grow wise!--I'll tell
+you what we'll do: we'll make it our first wish to know what's best to
+ask for; and then we can go on asking!"
+
+"Yes, yes; let us!"
+
+"I fancy we'll have as many wishes as we like! Doon upo' yer knees,
+Sandy!"
+
+They knelt together.
+
+I fear there are not a few to say, "How ill-instructed the poor children
+were!--actually mingling the gospel and the fairy tales!" "Happy
+children," say I, "who could blunder into the very heart of the will of
+God concerning them, and _do_ the thing at once that the Lord taught
+them, using the common sense which God had given and the fairy tale
+nourished!" The Lord of the promise is the Lord of all true parables and
+all good fairy tales.
+
+Andrew prayed:
+
+"Oh, Lord, tell Sandy and me what to ask for. We're unanimous."
+
+They got up from their knees. They had said what they had to say: why
+say more!
+
+They felt rather dull. Nothing came to them. The prayer was prayed, and
+they could not make the answer! There was no use in reading more! They
+put the Bible away in a rough box where they kept it among
+rose-leaves--ignorant priests of the lovely mystery of Him who was with
+them always--and without a word went each his own way, not happy, for
+were they not leaving Him under the elder-tree, lonely and shadowy,
+where it was their custom to meet! Alas for those who must go to church
+to find Him, or who can not pray unless in their closet!
+
+They wandered about disconsolate, at school and at home, the rest of the
+day--at least Andrew did; Sandy had Andrew to lean upon! Andrew had Him
+who was with them always, but He seemed at the other end of the world.
+They had prayed, and there was no more of it!
+
+In the evening, while yet it was light, Andrew went alone to the
+elder-tree, took the Bible from its humble shrine, and began turning
+over its leaves.
+
+"And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" He
+read, and sunk deep in thought.
+
+This is the way his thoughts went:
+
+"What things? What had He been saying? Let me look and see what He says,
+that I may begin to do it!"
+
+He read all the chapter, and found it full of _tellings_. When he read
+it before he had not thought of doing one of the things He said, for as
+plainly as He told him! He had not once thought He had any concern in
+the matter!
+
+"I see!" he said; "we must begin at once to do what He tells us!"
+
+He ran to find his brother.
+
+"I've got it!" he cried: "I've got it!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"What we've got to do"
+
+"And what is it?"
+
+"Just what He tells us."
+
+"We were doing that," said Sandy, "when we prayed Him to tell us what to
+pray for!"
+
+"So we were! That's grand!"
+
+"Then haven't we got to pray for anything more?"
+
+"We'll soon find out; but first we must look for something to do!"
+
+They began at once to search for things the Lord told them to do. And of
+all they found, the plainest and easiest was: "Whosoever shall smite
+thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." This needed no
+explanation! it was as clear as the day to both of them!
+
+The very next morning the school-master, who, though of a gentle
+disposition, was irritable, taking Andrew for the offender in a certain
+breach of discipline, gave him a smart box on the ear. Andrew, as
+readily as if it had been instinctively, turned to him the other cheek.
+
+An angry man is an evil interpreter of holy things, and Mr. Fordyce took
+the action for one of rudest mockery, nor thought of the higher master
+therein mocked if it were mockery: he struck the offender a yet smarter
+blow. Andrew stood for a minute like one dazed; but the red on his face
+was not that of anger; he was perplexed as to whether he ought now to
+turn the former cheek again to the striker. Uncertain, he turned away,
+and went to his work.
+
+Stops a reader here to say: "But do you really mean to tell us we ought
+to take the words literally as Andrew did?" I answer: "When you have
+earned the right to understand, you will not need to ask me. To explain
+what the Lord means to one who is not obedient, is the work of no man
+who knows his work."
+
+It is but fair to say for the school-master that, when he found he had
+mistaken, he tried to make up to the boy for it--not by confessing
+himself wrong--who could expect that of only a school-master?--but by
+being kinder to him than before. Through this he came to like him, and
+would teach him things out of the usual way--such as how to make
+different kinds of verse.
+
+By and by Andrew and Sandy had a quarrel. Suddenly Andrew came to
+himself, and cried:
+
+"Sandy! Sandy! He says we're to agree!"
+
+"Does He?"
+
+"He says we're to love one another, and we canna do that if we dinna
+agree!"
+
+There came a pause.
+
+"Perhaps after all you were in the right, Sandy!" said Andrew.
+
+"I was just going to say that; when I think about it, perhaps I wasn't
+so much in the right as I thought I was!"
+
+"It can't matter much which was in the right, when we were both in the
+wrong!" said Andrew. "Let's ask Him to keep us from caring which is in
+the right, and make us both try to be in the right We don't often
+differ about what we are to ask for, Sandy!"
+
+"No, we don't."
+
+"It's me to take care of you, Sandy!"
+
+"And me to take care of you, Andrew!"
+
+Here was the nucleus of a church!--two stones laid on the
+foundation-stone.
+
+"Luik here, Sandy!" said Andrew; "we maun hae anither, an' syne there'll
+be four o' 's!"
+
+"How's that?" asked Sandy.
+
+"I won'er 'at we never noticed it afore! Here's what He says: 'For where
+two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst
+of them.' In that way, wharever He micht be walkin' aboot, we could aye
+get Him! He likes twa, an' His Father 'ill hear the 'greed prayer, but
+He likes three better--an' that stan's to rizzon, for three maun be
+better 'n twa! First ane maun lo'e Him; an' syne twa can lo'e Him
+better, because ilk ane is helpit by the ither, an' lo'es Him the mair
+that He lo'es the ither ane! An' syne comes the third, and there's mair
+an' mair throwin' o' lichts, and there's the Lord himsel' i' the mids'
+o' them! Three maks a better mids' than twa!"
+
+Sandy could not follow the reasoning quite, but he had his own way of
+understanding.
+
+"It's jist like the story o' Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego!" he said.
+"There was three o' them, an' sae He made four! Eh, jist think o' Him
+bein' wi' 's His verra sel'!"
+
+Here now was a church indeed: the idea of a third was the very principle
+of growth! They would meet together and say: "Oh, Father of Jesus
+Christ, help us to be good like Jesus;" and then Jesus himself would
+make one of them, and worship the Father with them!
+
+The next thing, as a matter of course, was to look about for a third.
+
+"Dawtie!" cried both at once.
+
+Dawtie was the child of a cotter pair, who had an acre or two of their
+father's farm, and helped him with it. Her real name has not reached me;
+_Dawtie_ means _darling_, and is a common term of endearment--derived,
+Jamieson suggests, from the Gaelic _dalt_, signifying _a foster-child_.
+Dawtie was a dark-haired, laughing little darling, with shy, merry
+manners, and the whitest teeth, full of fun, but solemn in an instant.
+Her small feet were bare and black--except on Saturday nights and Sunday
+mornings--but full of expression, and perhaps really cleaner, from their
+familiarity with the sweet all-cleansing air, than such as hide the
+day-long in socks and shoes.
+
+Dawtie's specialty was love of the creatures. She had an undoubting
+conviction that every one of them with which she came in contact
+understood and loved her. She was the champion of the oppressed, without
+knowing it. Every individual necessity stood on its own merits, and came
+to her fresh and sole, as if she had forgotten all that went before it.
+Like some boys she had her pockets as well as her hands at the service
+of live things; but unlike any boy, she had in her love no admixture of
+natural history; it was not interest in animals with her, but an
+individual love to the individual animal, whatever it might be, that
+presented itself to the love-power in her.
+
+It may seem strange that there should be three such children together.
+But their fathers and mothers had for generations been poor--which was a
+great advantage, as may be seen in the world by him who has eyes to see,
+and heard in the parable of the rich man by him who has ears to hear.
+Also they were God-fearing, which was a far greater advantage, and made
+them honorable; for they would have scorned things that most Christians
+will do. Dawtie's father had a rarely keen instinct for what is mean,
+and that not in the way of abhorrence in others, but of avoidance in
+himself. To shades and _nuances_ of selfishness, which men of high
+repute and comfortable conscience would neither be surprised to find in
+their neighbors nor annoyed to find in themselves, he would give no
+quarter. Along with Andrew's father, he had, in childhood and youth,
+been under the influence of a simple-hearted pastor, whom the wise and
+prudent laughed at as one who could not take care of himself, incapable
+of seeing that, like his master, he laid down his life that he might
+take it again. He left God to look after him, that he might be free to
+look after God.
+
+Little Dawtie had learned her catechism, but, thank God, had never
+thought about it or attempted to understand it--good negative
+preparation for becoming, in a few years more, able to understand the
+New Testament with the heart of a babe.
+
+The brothers had not long to search before they came upon her, where she
+sat on the ground at the door of the turf-built cottage, feeding a
+chicken with oatmeal paste.
+
+"What are you doin', Dawtie?" they asked.
+
+"I'm tryin'," she answered, without looking up, "to haud the life i' the
+chuckie."
+
+"What's the matter wi' 't?"
+
+"Naething but the want o' a mither."
+
+"Is the mither o' 't deid?"
+
+"Na, she's alive eneuch, but she has ower mony bairns to hap them a';
+her wings winna cower them, and she drives this ane awa', and winna lat
+it come near her."
+
+"Sic a cruel mither!"
+
+"Na, she's no' cruel. She only wants to gar't come to me! She kenned I
+would tak it. Na, na; Flappy's a guid mither! I ken her weel; she's ane
+o' our ain! She kens me, or she would hae keepit the puir thing, and
+done her best wi' her."
+
+"I ken somebody," said Andrew, "that would fain spread oot wings, like a
+great big hen, ower a' the bairns, you an' me an' a', Dawtie!"
+
+"That's my mither!" cried Dawtie, looking up, and showing her white
+teeth.
+
+"Na, it's a man," said Sandy.
+
+"It's my father, than!"
+
+"Na, it's no. Would ye like to see Him?"
+
+"Na, I'm no carin'."
+
+"Sandy and me's gaein' to see Him some day."
+
+"I'll gang wi' ye. But I maun tak' my chuckie!"
+
+She looked down where she had set the little bird on the ground; it had
+hobbled away and she could not see it!
+
+"Eh," she cried, starting up, "ye made me forget my chuckie wi' yer
+questions! It's mither 'ill peck it!"
+
+She darted off, and forsook the tale of the Son of Man to look after her
+chicken. But presently she returned with it in her hands.
+
+"Tell awa'," she said, resuming her seat "What do they ca' Him?"
+
+"They ca' Him the Father o' Jesus Christ."
+
+"I'll gang wi' ye," she answered.
+
+So the church was increased by a whole half, and the fraction of a
+chicken--type of the groaning creation, waiting for the sonship.
+
+The three gathered to read and pray. And almost always there was some
+creature with them in the arms or hands of Dawtie. And if the Lord was
+not there, too, then are we Christians most miserable, for we see a
+glory beyond all that man could dream, and it is but a dream! Whose
+dream?
+
+They went on at other times with the usual employments and games of
+children. But there was this difference between them and most grown
+Christians, that when anything roused thought or question they at once
+referred it to the word of Jesus, and having discovered His will, made
+haste to do it. It naturally followed that, seeing He gives the spirit
+to them that obey Him, they grew rapidly in the modes of their Master,
+learning to look at things as He looked at them, to think of them as He
+thought of them, to value what He valued, and despise what He
+despised--all in simplest order of divine development, in uttermost
+accord with highest reason, the whole turning on the primary and
+continuous effort to obey.
+
+It was long before they came to have any regular time of meeting. Andrew
+always took the initiative in assembling the church. When he called they
+came together. Then he would read from the story, and communicate any
+discovery he had made concerning what Jesus would have them do. Next,
+they would consult and settle what they should ask for, and one of them,
+generally Andrew, but sometimes Sandy, would pray. They made no formal
+utterance, but simply asked for what they needed. Here are some
+specimens of their petitions:
+
+"Oh, Lord, Sandy canna for the life o' 'im un'erstan' the rule o' three;
+please, Lord, help him."
+
+"Oh, Lord, I dinna ken onything I want the day; please gi'e us what we
+need, an' what ye want us to hae, wi'oot our askin' it."
+
+"Lord, help us; we're ill-natnr'd (_bad-tempered_) the day; an' ye wadna
+hae us that."
+
+"Lord, Dawtie's mither has a sair heid (_headache_); mak her better,
+gien ye please."
+
+When their prayers were ended Andrew would say: "Sandy, have you found
+anything He says?" and there-upon, if he had, Sandy would speak. Dawtie
+never said a word, but sat and listened with her big eyes, generally
+stroking some creature in her lap.
+
+Surely the part of every superior is to help the life in the lower!
+
+Once the question arose, in their assembly of three and a bird, whose
+leg Dawtie had put in splints, what became of the creatures when they
+died. They concluded that the sparrow that God cared for must be worth
+caring for; and they could not believe He had made it to last only such
+a little while as its life in this world. Thereupon they agreed to ask
+the Lord that, when they died, they might have again a certain dog, an
+ugly little white mongrel, of which they had been very fond. All their
+days thereafter they were, I believe, more or less consciously, looking
+forward to the fulfillment of this petition. For their hope strengthened
+with the growth of their ideal; and when they had to give up any belief
+it was to take a better in its place.
+
+They yielded at length the notion that the peddler was Jesus Christ, but
+they never ceased to believe that He was God's messenger, or that the
+Lord was with them always. They would not insist that He was walking
+about on the earth, but to the end of their days they cherished the
+uncertain hope that they might, even without knowing it, look upon the
+face of the Lord in that of some stranger passing in the street, or
+mingling in a crowd, or seated in a church; for they knew that all the
+shapes of man belong to Him, and that, after He rose from the dead there
+were several occasions on which He did not at first look like Himself to
+those to whom He appeared.
+
+The child-like, the essential, the divine notion of serving, with their
+every-day will and being, the will of the living One, who lived for them
+that they might live, as once He had died for them that they might die,
+ripened in them to a Christianity that saw God everywhere, saw that
+everything had to be done as God would have it done, and that nothing
+but injustice had to be forsaken to please Him. They were under no
+influence of what has been so well called _other-worldliness_, for they
+saw this world as much God's as that, saw that its work has to be done
+divinely, that it is the beginning of the world to come. It was to them
+all one world, with God in it, all in all; therefore the best work for
+the other world was the work of this world.
+
+Such was the boyhood of that Andrew Ingram whom Miss Fordyce now
+reproved for not setting the good example of going to church.
+
+The common sense of the children rapidly developed, for there is no
+teacher like obedience, and no obstruction like its postponement. When
+in after years their mothers came at length to understand that obedience
+had been so long the foundation of their life, it explained to them many
+things that had seemed strange, and brought them to reproach themselves
+that they should have seemed strange.
+
+It ought not to be overlooked that the whole thing was wrought in the
+children without directed influence of kindred or any neighbor. They
+imitated none. The galvanism of imitation is not the life of the spirit;
+the use of form where love is not is killing. And if any one is desirous
+of spreading the truth let him apply himself, like these children, to
+the doing of it; not obeying the truth, he is doubly a liar pretending
+to teach it; if he obeys it already, let him obey it more. It is life
+that awakes life. All form of persuasion is empty except in vital
+association with regnant obedience. Talking and not doing is dry rot.
+
+Cottage children are sometimes more fastidious about their food than
+children that have a greater variety; they have a more delicate
+perception and discrimination in the simple dishes on which they thrive;
+much choice, though little refusal. Andrew had a great dislike to lumps
+in his porridge; and one day the mother having been less careful than
+usual in cooking it, he made a wry face at the first spoonful.
+
+"Andrew," said Sandy, "take no thought for what ye eat."
+
+It was a wrong interpretation, but a righteous use of the word. Happy
+the soul that mistakes the letter only to get at the spirit!
+
+Andrew's face smoothed itself, began to clear up, and broke at last into
+a sunny smile. He said nothing, but eat his full share of the porridge
+without a frown. This was practical religion; and if any one judge it
+not worth telling, I count his philosophy worthless beside it. Such a
+doer knows more than such a reader will ever know, except he take
+precisely the same way to learn. The children of God do what He would
+have them do, and are taught of Him.
+
+A report at length reached the pastor, now an old man, of ripe heart and
+true insight, that certain children in his parish "played at the Lord's
+Supper." He was shocked, and went to their parents. They knew nothing of
+the matter. The three children were sought, and the pastor had a private
+interview with them. From it he reappeared with a solemn, pale face, and
+silent tongue. They asked him the result of his inquiry. He answered
+that he was not prepared to interfere: as he was talking with them, the
+warning came that there were necks and mill-stones. The next Sunday he
+preached a sermon from the text, "Out of the month of babes and
+sucklings Thou hast perfected praise."
+
+The fathers and mothers made inquisition, and found no desire to
+conceal. Wisely or not, they forbade the observance. It cost Andrew much
+thought whether he was justified in obeying them; but he saw that right
+and wrong in itself was not concerned, and that the Lord would have them
+obey their parents.
+
+It was necessary to tell so much of the previous history of Andrew, lest
+what remains to be told should perhaps be unintelligible or seem
+incredible without it. A character like his can not be formed in a day;
+it must early begin to grow.
+
+The bond thus bound between the children, altering in form as they grew,
+was never severed; nor was the lower creation ever cut off from its
+share in the petitions of any one of them. When they ceased to assemble
+as a community, they continued to act on the same live principles.
+
+Gladly as their parents would have sent them to college, Andrew and
+Sandy had to leave school only to work on the farm. But they carried
+their studies on from the point they had reached. When they could not
+get further without help, they sought and found it. For a year or two
+they went in the winter to an evening school; but it took so much time
+to go and come that they found they could make more progress by working
+at home. What help they sought went a long way, and what they learned,
+they knew.
+
+When the day's work was over, and the evening meal, they went to the
+room their own hands had made convenient for study as well as sleep, and
+there resumed the labor they had dropped the night before. Together they
+read Greek and mathematics, but Andrew worked mainly in literature,
+Sandy in mechanics. On Saturdays, Sandy generally wrought at some model,
+while Andrew read to him. On Sundays, they always, for an hour or two,
+read the Bible together.
+
+The brothers were not a little amused with Miss Fordyce's patronage of
+Andrew; but they had now been too long endeavoring to bring into
+subjection the sense of personal importance, to take offense at it.
+
+Dawtie had gone into service, and they seldom saw her except when she
+came home for a day at the term. She was a grown woman now, but the same
+loving child as before. She counted the brothers her superiors, just as
+they counted the laird and his daughter their superiors. But whereas
+Alexa claimed the homage, Dawtie yielded where was no thought of
+claiming it. The brothers regarded her as their sister. That she was
+poorer than they, only made them the more watchful over her, and if
+possible the more respectful to her. So she had a rich return for her
+care of the chickens and kittens and puppies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+GEORGE AND ANDREW.
+
+George went home the next day; and the following week sent Andrew a
+note, explaining that when he saw him he did not know his obligation to
+him, and expressing the hope that, when next in town, he would call upon
+him. This was hardly well, being condescension to a superior. Perhaps
+the worst evil in the sense of social superiority is the vile fancy that
+it alters human relation. George did not feel bound to make the same
+acknowledgment of obligation to one in humble position as to one in the
+same golden rank with himself! It says ill for social distinction, if,
+for its preservation, such an immoral difference be essential. But
+Andrew was not one to dwell upon his rights. He thought it friendly of
+Mr. Crawford to ask him to call; therefore, although he had little
+desire to make his acquaintance, and grudged the loss of time, to no man
+so precious as to him who has a pursuit in addition to a calling,
+Andrew, far stronger in courtesy than the man who invited him, took the
+first Saturday afternoon to go and see him.
+
+Mr. Crawford the elder lived in some style, and his door was opened by a
+servant whose blatant adornment filled Andrew with friendly pity: no man
+would submit to be dressed like that, he judged, except from necessity.
+The reflection sprung from no foolish and degrading contempt for
+household service. It is true Andrew thought no labor so manly as that
+in the earth, out of which grows everything that makes the loveliness or
+use of Nature; for by it he came in contact with the primaries of human
+life, and was God's fellow laborer, a helper in the work of the
+universe, knowing the ways of it and living in them; but not the less
+would he have done any service, and that cheerfully, which his own need
+or that of others might have required of him. The colors of a parrot,
+however, were not fit for a son of man, and hence his look of sympathy.
+His regard was met only by a glance of plain contempt, as the lackey,
+moved by the same spirit as his master, left him standing in the
+hall--to return presently, and show him into the library--a room of
+mahogany, red morocco, and yellow calf, where George sat. He rose, and
+shook hands with him.
+
+"I am glad to see you, Mr. Ingram," he said. "When I wrote I had but
+just learned how much I was indebted to you."
+
+"I understand what you must mean," returned Andrew, "but it was scarce
+worth alluding to. Miss Fordyce had the better claim to serve you!"
+
+"You call it nothing to carry a man of my size over a mile of heather!"
+
+"I had help," answered Andrew; "and but for the broken leg," he added,
+with a laugh, "I could have carried you well enough alone."
+
+There came a pause, for George did not know what next to do with the
+farmer fellow. So the latter spoke again, being unembarrassed.
+
+"You have a grand library, Mr. Crawford! It must be fine to sit among so
+many books! It's just like a wine-merchant's cellars--only here you can
+open and drink, and leave the bottles as full as before!"
+
+"A good simile, Mr. Ingram!" replied George. "You must come and dine
+with me, and we'll open another sort of bottle!"
+
+"You must excuse me there, sir! I have no time for that sort of bottle."
+
+"I understand you read a great deal?"
+
+"Weather permitting," returned Andrew.
+
+"I should have thought if anything was independent of the weather, it
+must be reading!"
+
+"Not a farmer's reading, sir. To him the weather is the Word of God,
+telling him whether to work or read."
+
+George was silent. To him the Word of God was the Bible!
+
+"But you must read a great deal yourself, sir!" resumed Andrew, casting
+a glance round the room.
+
+"The books are my father's!" said George.
+
+He did not mention that his own reading came all in the library-cart,
+except when he wanted some special information; for George was "a
+practical man!" He read his Bible to prepare for his class in the
+Sunday-school, and his Shakespeare when he was going to see one of his
+plays acted. He would make the best of both worlds by paying due
+attention to both! He was religious, but liberal.
+
+His father was a banker, an elder of the kirk, well reputed in and
+beyond his circle. He gave to many charities, and largely to educational
+schemes. His religion was to hold by the traditions of the elders, and
+keep himself respectable in the eyes of money-dealers. He went to church
+regularly, and always asked God's blessing on his food, as if it were a
+kind of general sauce. He never prayed God to make him love his
+neighbor, or help him to be an honest man. He "had worship" every
+morning, no doubt; but only a Nonentity like his God could care for such
+prayers as his. George rejected his father's theology as false in logic
+and cruel in character: George knew just enough of God to be guilty of
+neglecting Him.
+
+"When I am out all day, I can do with less reading; for then I have the
+'book of knowledge fair,'" said Andrew, quoting Milton. "It does not
+take _all_ one's attention to drive a straight furrow or keep the harrow
+on the edge of the last bout!"
+
+"You don't mean you can read your Bible as you hold the plow!" said
+George.
+
+"No, sir," answered Andrew, amused. "A body could not well manage a book
+between the stilts of the plow. The Bible will keep till you get home; a
+little of it goes a long way. But Paul counted the book of creation
+enough to make the heathen to blame for not minding it. Never a wind
+wakes of a sudden, but it talks to me about God. And is not the sunlight
+the same that came out of the body of Jesus at His transfiguration?"
+
+"You seem to have some rather peculiar ideas of your own, Mr. Ingram!"
+
+"Perhaps, sir! For a man to have no ideas of his own, is much the same
+as to have no ideas at all. A man can not have the ideas of another man,
+any more than he can have another man's soul, or another man's body!"
+
+"That is dangerous doctrine."
+
+"Perhaps we are not talking about the same thing! I mean by _ideas_,
+what a man orders his life by."
+
+"Your ideas may be wrong!"
+
+"The All-wise is my judge."
+
+"So much the worse, if you are in the wrong!"
+
+"It is the only good, whether I be in the right or the wrong. Would I
+have my mistakes overlooked? What judge would I desire but the Judge of
+all the earth! Shall He not do right? And will He not set me right?"
+
+"That is a most dangerous confidence!"
+
+"It would be if there were any other judge. But it will be neither the
+Church nor the world that will sit on the great white throne. He who
+sits there will not ask: 'Did you go to church?' or 'Did you believe in
+this or that?' but' Did you do what I told you?'"
+
+"And what will you say to that, Mr. Ingram?"
+
+"I will say: 'Lord, Thou knowest!"
+
+The answer checked George a little.
+
+"Suppose He should say you did not, what would you answer?"
+
+"I would say: 'Lord, send me where I may learn.'"
+
+"And if He should say: 'That is what I sent you into the world for, and
+you have not done it!' what would you say then?"
+
+"I should hold my peace."
+
+"You do what He tells you then?"
+
+"I try."
+
+"Does He not say: 'Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together?'"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"No?"
+
+"Somebody says something like it in the Epistle to the Hebrews."
+
+"And isn't that the same?"
+
+"The Man who wrote it would be indignant at your saying so! Tell me, Mr.
+Crawford, what makes a gathering a Church?"
+
+"It would take me some time to arrange my ideas before I could answer
+you."
+
+"Is it not the presence of Christ that makes an assembly a Church?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Does He not say that where two or three are met in His name, there is
+He in the midst of them?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then thus far I will justify myself to you, that, if I do not go to
+what you call _church_, I yet often make one of a company met in His
+name."
+
+"He does not limit the company to two or three."
+
+"Assuredly not. But if I find I get more help and strength with a
+certain few, why should I go with a multitude to get less? Will you draw
+another line than the Master's? Why should it be more sacred to worship
+with five hundred or five thousand than with three? If He is in the
+midst of them, they can not be wrong gathered!"
+
+"It _looks_ as if you thought yourselves better than everybody else!"
+
+"If it were so, then certainly He would not be _one_ of the gathering!"
+
+"How are you to know that He is in the midst of you?"
+
+"If we are not keeping His commandments, He is not. But His presence can
+not be _proved_; it can only be known. If He meets us, it is not
+necessary to the joy of His presence that we should be able to prove
+that He does meet us! If a man has the company of the Lord, he will care
+little whether another does or does not believe that he has."
+
+"Your way is against the peace of the Church! It fosters division."
+
+"Did the Lord come to send peace on the earth? My way, as you call it,
+would make division, but division between those who call themselves His
+and those who are His. It would bring together those that love Him.
+Company would merge with company that they might look on the Lord
+together. I don't believe Jesus cares much for what is called the
+visible Church; but He cares with His very Godhead for those that do as
+He tells them; they are His Father's friends; they are His elect by whom
+He will save the world. It is by those who obey, and by their obedience,
+that He will save those who do not obey, that is, will bring them to
+obey. It is one by one the world will pass to His side. There is no
+saving in the lump. If a thousand be converted at once, it is every
+single lonely man that is converted."
+
+"You would make a slow process of it!"
+
+"If slow, yet faster than any other. All God's processes are slow. How
+many years has the world existed, do you imagine, sir?"
+
+"I don't know. Geologists say hundreds and hundreds of thousands."
+
+"And how many is it since Christ came?"
+
+"Toward two thousand."
+
+"Then we are but in the morning of Christianity! There is plenty of
+time. The day is before us."
+
+"Dangerous doctrine for the sinner!"
+
+"Why? Time is plentiful for his misery, if he will not repent; plentiful
+for the mercy of God that would lead him to repentance. There is plenty
+of time for labor and hope; none for indifference and delay. God _will_
+have his creatures good. They can not escape Him."
+
+"Then a man may put off repentance as long as he pleases!"
+
+"Certainly he may--at least as long as he can--but it is a fearful thing
+to try issues with God."
+
+"I can hardly say I understand you."
+
+"Mr. Crawford, you have questioned me in the way of kindly anxiety and
+reproof; that has given me the right to question you. Tell me, do you
+admit we are bound to do what our Lord requires?"
+
+"Of course. How could any Christian man do otherwise?"
+
+"Yet a man may say: 'Lord, Lord,' and be cast out! It is one thing to
+say we are bound to do what the Lord tells us, and another to do what He
+tells us! He says: 'Seek ye _first_ the kingdom of God and His
+righteousness:' Mr. Crawford, are you seeking the kingdom of God
+_first_, or are you seeking money first?"
+
+"We are sent into the world to make our living."
+
+"Sent into the world, we have to seek our living; we are not sent into
+the world to seek our living, but to seek the kingdom and righteousness
+of God. And to seek a living is very different from seeking a fortune!"
+
+"If you, Mr. Ingram, had a little wholesome ambition, you would be less
+given to judging your neighbors."
+
+Andrew held his peace, and George concluded he had had the best of the
+argument--which was all he wanted; of the truth concerned he did not see
+enough to care about it Andrew, perceiving no good was to be done, was
+willing to appear defeated; he did not value any victory but the victory
+of the truth, and George was not yet capable of being conquered by the
+truth.
+
+"No!" resumed he, "we must avoid personalities. There are certain things
+all respectable people have agreed to regard as right: he is a
+presumptuous man who refuses to regard them. Reflect on it, Mr. Ingram."
+
+The curious smile hovered about the lip of the plow-man; when things to
+say did not come to him, he went nowhere to fetch them. Almost in
+childhood he had learned that, when one is required to meet the lie,
+words are given him; when they are not, silence is better. A man who
+does not love the truth, but disputes for victory, is the swine before
+whom pearls must not be cast. Andrew's smile meant that it had been a
+waste of his time to call upon Mr. Crawford. But he did not blame
+himself, for he had come out of pure friendliness. He would have risen
+at once, but feared to seem offended. Crawford, therefore, with the
+rudeness of a superior, himself rose, saying:
+
+"Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Ingram?"
+
+"The only thing one man can do for another is to be at one with him,"
+answered Andrew, rising.
+
+"Ah, you are a socialist! That accounts for much!" said George.
+
+"Tell me this," returned Andrew, looking him in the eyes: "Did Jesus
+ever ask of His Father anything His Father would not give Him?"
+
+"Not that I remember," answered George, fearing a theological trap.
+
+"He said once: 'I pray for them which shall believe in Me, that they all
+may be one, as Thou Father art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also many
+be one in us!' No man can be one with another, who is not one with
+Christ."
+
+As he left the house, a carriage drove up, in which was Mr. Crawford the
+elder, home from a meeting of directors, at which a dividend had been
+agreed upon--to be paid from the capital, in preparation for another
+issue of shares.
+
+Andrew walked home a little bewildered. "How is it," he said to himself,
+"that so many who would be terrified at the idea of not being
+Christians, and are horrified at any man who does not believe there is a
+God, are yet absolutely indifferent to what their Lord tells them to do
+if they would be His disciples? But may not I be in like case without
+knowing it? Do I meet God in my geometry? When I so much enjoy my
+Euclid, is it always God geometrizing to me? Do I feel talking with God
+every time I dwell upon any fact of his world of lines and circles and
+angles? Is it God with me, every time that the joy of life, of a wind or
+a sky or a lovely phrase, flashes through me? Oh, my God," he broke out
+in speechless prayer as he walked--and those that passed said to
+themselves he was mad; how, in such a world, could any but a madman wear
+a face of joy! "Oh, my God, Thou art all in all, and I have everything!
+The world is mine because it is Thine! I thank Thee, my God, that Thou
+hast lifted me up to see whence I came, to know to whom I belong, to
+know who is my Father, and makes me His heir! I am Thine, infinitely
+more than mine own; and Thou art mine as Thou art Christ's!"
+
+He knew his Father in the same way that Jesus Christ knows His Father.
+He was at home in the universe, neither lonely, nor out-of-doors, nor
+afraid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE CRAWFORDS.
+
+
+Through strong striving to secure his life, Mr. Crawford lost it--both
+in God's sense of loss and his own. He narrowly escaped being put in
+prison, died instead, and was put into God's prison to pay the uttermost
+farthing. But he had been such a good Christian that his
+fellow-Christians mourned over his failure and his death, not over his
+dishonesty! For did they not know that if, by more dishonesty, he could
+have managed to recover his footing, he would have paid everything? One
+injunction only he obeyed--he provided for his own; of all the widows
+concerned in his bank, his widow alone was secured from want; and she,
+like a dutiful wife, took care that his righteous intention should be
+righteously carried out; not a penny would she give up to the paupers
+her husband had made.
+
+The downfall of the house of cards took place a few months after
+George's return to its business. Not initiated to the mysteries of his
+father's transactions, ignorant of what had long been threatening, it
+was a terrible blow to him. But he was a man of action, and at once
+looked to America; at home he could not hold up his head.
+
+He had often been to Potlurg, and had been advancing in intimacy with
+Alexa; but he would not show himself there until he could appear as a
+man of decision--until he was on the point of departure. She would be
+the more willing to believe his innocence of complicity in the
+deceptions that had led to his ruin! He would thus also manifest
+self-denial and avoid the charge of interested motives! he could not
+face the suspicion of being a suitor with nothing to offer! George had
+always taken the grand rôle--that of superior, benefactor, bestower. He
+was powerful in condescension!
+
+Not, therefore, until the night before he sailed did he go to Potlurg.
+
+Alexa received him with a shade of displeasure.
+
+"I am going away," he said, abruptly, the moment they were seated.
+
+Her heart gave a painful throb in her throat, but she did not lose her
+self-possession.
+
+"Where are you going?" she asked.
+
+"To New York," he replied. "I have got a situation there--in a not
+unimportant house. _There_ at least I am taken for an honest man. From
+your heaven I have fallen."
+
+"No one falls from any heaven but has himself to blame," rejoined Alexa.
+
+"Where have I been to blame? I was not in my father's confidence. I knew
+nothing, positively nothing, of what was going on."
+
+"Why then did you not come to see me?"
+
+"A man who is neither beggar nor thief is not willing to look either."
+
+"You would have come if you had trusted me," she said.
+
+"You must pardon pride in a ruined man," he answered. "Now that I am
+starting to-morrow, I do not feel the same dread of being
+misunderstood!"
+
+"It was not kind of you, George. Knowing yourself fit to be trusted, why
+did you not think me capable of trusting?"
+
+"But, Alexa!--a man's own father!"
+
+For a moment he showed signs of an emotion he had seldom had to repress.
+
+"I beg your pardon, George!" cried Alexa. "I am both stupid and selfish!
+Are you really going so far?"
+
+Her voice trembled.
+
+"I am--but to return, I hope, in a very different position!"
+
+"You would have me understand--"
+
+"That I shall then be able to hold up my head."
+
+"Why should an innocent man ever do otherwise?"
+
+"He can not help seeing himself in other people's thoughts!"
+
+"If we are in the right ought we to mind what people think of us?" said
+Alexa.
+
+"Perhaps not. But I will make them think of me as I choose."
+
+"How?"
+
+"By compelling their respect."
+
+"You mean to make a fortune?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then it will be the fortune they respect! You will not be more worthy!"
+
+"I shall not."
+
+"Is such respect worth having?"
+
+"Not in itself."
+
+"In what then? Why lay yourself out for it?"
+
+"Believe me, Alexa, even the real respect of such people would be
+worthless to me. I only want to bring them to their marrow-bones!"
+
+The truth was, Alexa prized social position so dearly that she did not
+relish his regarding it as a thing at the command of money. Let George
+be as rich as a Jew or an American, Alexa would never regard him as her
+equal! George worshiped money; Alexa worshiped birth and land.
+
+Our own way of being wrong is all right in our own eyes; our neighbor's
+way of being wrong is offensive to all that is good in us. We are
+anxious therefore, kindly anxious, to pull the mote out of his eye,
+never thinking of the big beam in the way of the operation. Jesus
+labored to show us that our immediate business is to be right ourselves.
+Until we are, even our righteous indignation is waste.
+
+While he spoke, George's eyes were on the ground. His grand resolve did
+not give his innocence strength to look in the face of the woman he
+loved; he felt, without knowing why, that she was not satisfied with
+him. Of the paltriness of his ambition, he had no inward hint. The high
+resolves of a puny nature must be a laughter to the angels--the bad
+ones.
+
+"If a man has no ambition," he resumed, feeling after her objection,
+"how is he to fulfill the end of his being! No sluggard ever made his
+mark! How would the world advance but for the men who have to make their
+fortunes! If a man find his father has not made money for him, what is
+he to do but make it for himself? You would not have me all my life a
+clerk! If I had but known, I should by this time have been well ahead!"
+
+Alexa had nothing to answer; it all sounded very reasonable! Were not
+Scots boys everywhere taught it was the business of life to rise? In
+whatever position they were, was it not their part to get out of it? She
+did not see that it is in the kingdom of heaven only we are bound to
+rise. We are born into the world not to rise in the kingdom of Satan,
+but out of it And the only way to rise in the kingdom of heaven is to do
+the work given us to do. Whatever be intended for us, this is the only
+way to it We have not to promote ourselves, but to do our work. It is
+the master of the feast who says: "Go up." If a man go up of himself, he
+will find he has mistaken the head of the table.
+
+More talk followed, but neither cast any light; neither saw the true
+question. George took his leave. Alexa said she would be glad to hear
+from him.
+
+Alexa did not like the form of George's ambition--to gain money, and so
+compel the respect of persons he did not himself respect But was she
+clear of the money disease herself? Would she have married a poor man,
+to go on as hitherto? Would she not have been ashamed to have George
+know how she had supplied his needs while he lay in the house--that it
+was with the poor gains of her poultry-yard she fed him? Did it improve
+her moral position toward money that she regarded commerce with
+contempt--a rudiment of the time when nobles treated merchants as a
+cottager his bees?
+
+George's situation was a subordinate one in a house of large dealings in
+Wall Street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+DAWTIE.
+
+Is not the Church supposed to be made up of God's elect? and yet most of
+my readers find it hard to believe there should be three persons, so
+related, who agreed to ask of God, and to ask neither riches nor love,
+but that God should take His own way with them, that the Father should
+work His will in them, that He would teach them what He wanted of them,
+and help them to do it! The Church is God's elect, and yet you can not
+believe in three holy children! Do you say: "Because they are
+represented as beginning to obey so young?" "Then," I answer, "there can
+be no principle, only an occasional and arbitrary exercise of spiritual
+power, in the perfecting of praise out of the mouth of babes and
+sucklings, or in the preference of them to the wise and prudent as the
+recipients of divine revelation."
+
+Dawtie never said much, but tried the more. With heartiness she accepted
+what conclusions the brothers came to, so far as she understood
+them--and what was practical she understood as well as they; for she had
+in her heart the spirit of that Son of Man who chose a child to
+represent Him and His Father. As to what they heard at church, their
+minds were so set on doing what they found in the Gospel, that it passed
+over them without even rousing their intellect, and so vanished without
+doing any hurt. Tuned to the truth by obedience, no falsehood they heard
+from the pulpit partisans of God could make a chord vibrate in response.
+Dawtie indeed heard nothing but the good that was mingled with the
+falsehood, and shone like a lantern through a thick fog.
+
+She was little more than a child when, to the trouble of her parents,
+she had to go out to service. Every half year she came home for a day or
+so, and neither feared nor found any relation altered. At length after
+several closely following changes, occasioned by no fault of hers, she
+was without a place. Miss Fordyce heard of it, and proposed to her
+parents that, until she found another, she should help Meg, who was
+growing old and rather blind: she would thus, she said, go on learning,
+and not be idling at home.
+
+Dawtie's mother was not a little amused at the idea of any one idling in
+her house, not to say Dawtie, whom idleness would have tried harder than
+any amount of work; but, if only that Miss Fordyce might see what sort
+of girl Dawtie was, she judged it right to accept her offer.
+
+She had not been at Potlurg a week before Meg began to complain that she
+did not leave work enough to keep her warm. No doubt it gave her time
+for her book, but her eyes were not so good as they used to be, and she
+was apt to fall asleep over it, and catch cold! But when her mistress
+proposed to send her away, she would not hear of it So Alexa, who had
+begun to take an interest in her, set her to do things she had hitherto
+done herself, and began to teach her other things. Before three months
+were over, she was a necessity in the house, and to part with Dawtie
+seemed impossible. A place about that time turning up, Alexa at once
+offered her wages, and so Dawtie became an integral portion of the
+laird's modest household.
+
+The laird himself at length began to trust her as he had never trusted
+servant, for he taught her to dust his precious books, which hitherto he
+had done himself, but of late had shrunk from, finding not a few of them
+worse than Pandora-boxes, liberating asthma at the merest unclosing.
+
+Dawtie was now a grown woman, bright, gentle, playful, with loving eyes,
+and a constant overflow of tenderness upon any creature that could
+receive it. She had small but decided and regular features, whose
+prevailing expression was confidence--not in herself, for she was scarce
+conscious of herself even in the act of denying herself--but in the
+person upon whom her trusting eyes were turned. She was in the world to
+help--with no political economy beyond the idea that for help and
+nothing else did any one exist. To be as the sun and the rain and the
+wind, as the flowers that lived for her and not for themselves, as the
+river that flowed, and the heather that bloomed lovely on the bare moor
+in the autumn, such was her notion of being. That she had to take care
+of herself was a falsehood that never entered her brain. To do what she
+ought, and not do what she ought not, was enough on her part, and God
+would do the rest! I will not say she reasoned thus; to herself she was
+scarce a conscious object at all. Both bodily and spiritually she was in
+the finest health. If illness came, she would perhaps then discover a
+self with which she had to fight--I can not tell; but my impression is,
+that she had so long done the true thing, that illness would only
+develop unconscious victory, perfecting the devotion of her simple
+righteousness. It is because we are selfish, with that worst selfishness
+which is incapable of recognizing itself, not to say its own
+loathsomeness, that we have to be made ill. That they may leave the last
+remnants of their selfishness, are the saints themselves over-taken by
+age and death. Suffering does not cause the vile thing in us--that was
+there all the time; it comes to develop in us the knowledge of its
+presence, that it may be war to the knife between us and it. It was no
+wonder that Dawtie grew more and more of a favorite at Potlurg.
+
+She did not read much, but would learn by heart anything that pleased
+her, and then go saying or singing it to herself. She had the voice of a
+lark, and her song prevented many a search for her. Against that "rain
+of melody," not the pride of the laird, or the orderliness of the
+ex-school-master ever put up the umbrella of rebuke. Her singing was so
+true, came so clear from the fountain of joy, and so plainly from no
+desire to be heard, that it gave no annoyance; while such was her
+sympathy, that, although she had never get suffered, you would, to hear
+her sing "My Nannie's awa'!" have thought her in truth mourning an
+absent lover, and familiar with every pang of heart-privation. Her
+cleanliness, clean even of its own show, was a heavenly purity; while so
+gently was all her spiriting done, that the very idea of fuss died in
+the presence of her labor. To the self-centered such a person soon
+becomes a nobody; the more dependent they are upon her unfailing
+ministration, the less they think of her; but they have another way of
+regarding such in "the high countries." Hardly any knew her real name;
+she was known but by her pet name _Dawtie_.
+
+Alexa, who wondered at times that she could not interest her in things
+she made her read, little knew how superior the girl's choice was to her
+own! Not knowing much of literature, what she liked was always of the
+best in its kind, and nothing without some best element could interest
+her at all. But she was not left either to her "own sweet will" or to
+the prejudices of her well-meaning mistress; however long the intervals
+that parted them, Andrew continued to influence her reading as from the
+first. A word now and a word then, with the books he lent or gave her,
+was sufficient. That Andrew liked this or that, was enough to make
+Dawtie set herself to find in it what Andrew liked, and it was thus she
+became acquainted with most of what she learned by heart.
+
+Above two years before the time to which I have now brought my
+narrative, Sandy had given up farming, to pursue the development of
+certain inventions of his which had met the approval of a man of means
+who, unable himself to devise, could yet understand a device: he saw
+that there was use, and consequently money in them, and wisely put it in
+Sandy's power to perfect them. He was in consequence but little at home,
+and when Dawtie went to see her parents, as she could much oftener now,
+Andrew and she generally met without a third. However many weeks might
+have passed, they always met as if they had parted only the night
+before. There was neither shyness nor forwardness in Dawtie. Perhaps a
+livelier rose might tinge her sweet round cheek when she saw Andrew;
+perhaps a brighter spark shone in the pupil of Andrew's eye; but they
+met as calmly as two prophets in the secret of the universe, neither
+anxious nor eager. The old relation between them was the more potent
+that it made so little outward show.
+
+"Have you anything for me, Andrew?" Dawtie would say, in the strong
+dialect which her sweet voice made so pleasant to those that loved her;
+whereupon Andrew, perhaps without immediate answer more than a smile,
+would turn into his room, and reappear with what he had got ready for
+her to "chew upon" till they should meet again. Milton's sonnet, for
+instance, to the "virgin wise and pure," had long served her aspiration;
+equally wise and pure, Dawtie could understand it as well as she for
+whom it was written. To see the delight she took in it, would have been
+a joy to any loving student of humanity. It had cost her more effort to
+learn than almost any song, and perhaps therefore it was the more
+precious. Andrew seldom gave her a book to learn from; in general he
+copied, in his clearest handwriting, whatever poem or paragraph he
+thought fit for Dawtie; and when they met, she would not unfrequently,
+if there was time, repeat unasked what she had learned, and be rewarded
+with his unfailing look of satisfaction.
+
+There was a secret between them--a secret proclaimed on the house-tops,
+a secret hidden, the most precious of pearls, in their hearts--that the
+earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; that its work is the work
+of the Lord, whether the sowing of the field, the milking of the cow,
+the giving to the poor, the spending of wages, the reading of the Bible;
+that God is all in all, and every throb of gladness His gift; that their
+life came fresh every moment from His heart; that what was lacking to
+them would arrive the very moment He had got them ready for it. They
+were God's little ones in God's world--none the less their own that they
+did not desire to swallow it, or thrust it in their pockets.
+
+Among poverty-stricken Christians, consumed with care to keep a hold of
+the world and save their souls, they were as two children of the house.
+By living in the presence of the living One, they had become themselves
+His presence--dim lanterns through which His light shone steady. Who
+obeys, shines.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+SANDY AND GEORGE.
+
+Sandy had found it expedient to go to America, and had now been there a
+twelvemonth; he had devised a machine of the value of which not even his
+patron could be convinced--that is, he could not see the prospect of its
+making money fast enough to constitute it a _good thing_. Sandy regarded
+it as a discovery, a revelation for the uplifting of a certain
+down-trodden portion of the community; and therefore, having saved a
+little money, had resolved to make it known in the States, where insight
+into probabilities is fresher. And now Andrew had a letter from him in
+which he mentioned that he had come across Mr. Crawford, already of high
+repute in Wall Street; that he had been kind to him, and having learned
+his object in visiting the country, and the approximate risk in bringing
+out his invention, had taken the thing into consideration. But the next
+mail brought another letter to the effect that, having learned the
+nature of the business done by Mr. Crawford, he found himself unable to
+distinguish between it and gambling, or worse; it seemed to him a vortex
+whose very emptiness drew money into it. He had therefore drawn back,
+and declined to put the thing in Crawford's hands. This letter Andrew
+gave Dawtie to read, that she might see that Sandy remained a true man.
+He had never been anxious on the point, but was very glad that ignorance
+had not drawn him into an evil connection.
+
+Dawtie took the letter with her to read at her leisure. Unable, however,
+to understand something Sandy said concerning Mr. Crawford's business,
+she asked a question or two of her mistress, which led to questions on
+Alexa's part. Finding what was the subject of Sandy's letter, she wished
+to see it. Dawtie asked leave of Andrew, and gave it her.
+
+Alexa was both distressed and indignant becoming at once George's
+partisan. Her distress diminished and her indignation increased as she
+reflected on the _airt_ whence the unfavorable report reached her; the
+brothers were such peculiar men! She recalled the strange things she had
+heard of their childhood; doubtless the judgment was formed on an
+overstrained and quixotic idea of honesty! Besides, there had always
+been a strong socialistic tendency in them, which explained how Sandy
+could malign his benefactor! George was incapable of doing anything
+dishonorable! She would not trouble herself about it. But she would like
+to know how Andrew regarded the matter.
+
+She asked him therefore what he thought of Sandy's procedure. Andrew
+replied that he did not know much about business; but that the only
+safety must lie in having nothing to do with what was doubtful;
+therefore Sandy had done right. Alexa said it was too bad of him to
+condemn where he confessed ignorance. Andrew replied:
+
+"Ma'am, if Mr. Crawford is wrong he is condemned; if he is right my
+private doubt can not hurt him. Sandy must act by his own doubt, not by
+Mr. Crawford's confidence."
+
+Alexa grew more distressed, for she began to recall things George had
+said which at the time she had not liked, but which she had succeeded in
+forgetting. If he had indeed gone astray, she hoped he would forget her;
+she could do without him! But the judgment of such a man as Sandy could
+settle nothing. Of humble origin and childish simplicity, he could not
+see the thing as a man of experience must. George might be all right
+notwithstanding. At the same time there was his father--whose reputation
+remained under a thick cloud, whose failed character rather than his
+ill-success had driven George to the other continent. Breed must go for
+something in a question of probabilities. It was the first time Alexa's
+thoughts had been turned into such a channel. She clung to the poor
+comfort that something must have passed at the interview so kindly
+sought by George to set the quixotical young farmer against him. She
+would not utter his name to Andrew ever again!
+
+She was right in thinking that George cherished a sincere affection for
+her. It was one of the spurs which drove him too eagerly after money. I
+doubt if any man starts with a developed love of money for its own
+sake--except indeed he be born of generations of mammon worshipers.
+George had gone into speculation with the object of retrieving the
+position in which he had supposed himself born, and in the hope of
+winning the hand of his cousin--thinking too much of himself to offer
+what would not in the eyes of the world be worth her acceptance. When he
+stepped on the inclined plane of dishonesty he believed himself only
+engaging in "legitimate speculation;" but he was at once affected by the
+atmosphere about him. Wrapped in the breath of admiration and adulation
+surrounding men who cared for _nothing_ but money-making, men who were
+not merely dishonest, but the very serpents of dishonesty, against whom
+pickpockets will "stick off" as angels of light; constantly under the
+softly persuasive influence of low morals and extravagant appreciation
+of cunning, he came by rapid degrees to think less and less of right and
+wrong. At first he called the doings of the place dishonest; then he
+called them sharp practice; then he called them a little shady; then,
+close sailing; then he said this or that transaction was deuced clever;
+then, the man was more rogue than fool; then he laughed at the success
+of a vile trick; then he touched the pitch, and thinking all the time it
+was but with one finger, was presently besmeared all over--as was
+natural, for he who will touch is already smeared.
+
+While Alexa was fighting his battles with herself he had thrown down his
+arms in the only battle worth fighting. When he wrote to her, which he
+did regularly, he said no more about business than that his prospects
+were encouraging; how much his reticence may have had to do with a sense
+of her disapproval I can not tell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.
+
+One lovely summer evening Dawtie, with a bundle in her hand, looked from
+the top of a grassy knoll down on her parents' turf cottage. The sun was
+setting behind her, and she looked as if she had stepped from it as it
+touched the ground on which she stood, rosy with the rosiness of the
+sun, but with a light in her countenance which came from a higher
+source, from the same nest as the sun himself. She paused but a moment,
+ran down the hill, and found her mother making the porridge. Mother and
+daughter neither embraced, nor kissed, nor even shook hands, but their
+faces glowed with delight, and words of joy and warmest welcome flowed
+between them.
+
+"But ye haena lost yer place, hae ye, hinny?" said the mother.
+
+"No, mother; there's no fear o' that, as lang's the laird or Miss Lexy's
+to the fore. They tret me--I winna say like ane o' themsel's, but as if
+they would hae likit me for ane o' themsel's, gien it had pleased the
+Lord to sen' me their way instead o' yours. They're that guid to me ye
+canna think!"
+
+"Then what's broucht ye the day?"
+
+"I beggit for a play-day. I wantit to see An'rew."
+
+"Eh, lass! I'm feart for ye! Ye maunna set yer hert sae hie! An'rew's
+the best o' men, but a lass canna hae a man til hersel' jist 'cause he's
+the best man i' the warl'!"
+
+"What mean ye by that, mother?" said Dawtie, looking a little scared.
+"Am I no' to lo'e An'rew, 'cause he's 'maist as guid's the Lord wad hae
+him? Wad ye hae me hate him for't? Has na he taught me to lo'e God--to
+lo'e Him better nor father, mither, An'rew, or onybody? I _wull_ lo'e
+An'rew! What can ye mean, mother?"
+
+"What I mean, Dawtie, is, that ye mamma think because ye lo'e him ye
+maun hae him; ye maunna think ye canna du wantin' An'rew!"
+
+"It's true, mother, I kenna what I should do wantin' An'rew! Is na he
+aye shovin' the door o' the kingdom a wee wider to lat me see in the
+better? It's little ferly (_marvel_) I lo'e him! But as to wantin'him
+for my ain man, as ye hae my father!--mother, I wad be ashamet o' mysel'
+to think o' ony sic a thing!--clean affrontit wi' mysel' I wad be!"
+
+"Weel, weel, bairn! Ye was aye a wise like lass, an' I maun lippen til
+ye! Only luik to yer hert."
+
+"As for no' lo'ein' him, mither--me that canna luik at a blin' kittlin'
+ohn lo'ed it!--lo, mither! God made me sae, an didna mean me no' to lo'e
+An'rew!"
+
+"Andrew!" she repeated, as if the word meant the perfection of earth's
+worthiest rendering the idea of appropriation too absurd.
+
+Silence followed, but the mother was brooding.
+
+"Ye maun bethink ye, lass, hoo far he's abune ye!" she said at length.
+
+As the son of the farmer on whose land her husband was a cotter, Andrew
+seemed to her what the laird seemed to old John Ingram, and what the
+earl seemed to the laird, though the laird's family was ancient when the
+earl's had not been heard of. But Dawtie understood Andrew better than
+did her mother.
+
+"You and me sees him far abune, mother, but Andrew himsel' never thinks
+o' nae sic things. He's sae used to luikin' up, he's forgotten to luik
+doon. He bauds his lan' frae a higher than the laird, or the yerl
+himsel'!"
+
+The mother was silent. She was faithful and true, but, fed on the dried
+fish of logic and system and Roman legalism, she could not follow the
+simplicities of her daughter's religion, who trusted neither in notions
+about him, nor even in what he had done, but in the live Christ himself
+whom she loved and obeyed.
+
+"If Andrew wanted to marry me," Dawtie went on, jealous for the divine
+liberty of her teacher, "which never cam intil's heid--na, no ance--the
+same bein' ta'en up wi' far ither things, it wouldna be because I was
+but a cotter lass that he wouldna tak his ain gait! But the morn's the
+Sabbath day, and we'll hae a walk thegither."
+
+"I dinna a'thegither like thae walks upo' the Sabbath day," said the
+mother.
+
+"Jesus walkit on the Sabbath the same as ony ither day, mother!"
+
+"Weel, but He kenned what He was aboot!"
+
+"And sae do I, mother! I ken His wull!"
+
+"He had aye something on han' fit to be dune o' the Sabbath!"
+
+"And so hae I the day, mother. If I was to du onything no fit i' this
+His warl', luikin' oot o' the e'en He gae me, wi' the han's an' feet He
+gae me, I wad jist deserve to be nippit oot at ance, or sent intil the
+ooter mirk (_darkness_)!"
+
+"There's a mony maun fare ill then, lass!"
+
+"I'm sayin' only for mysel'. I ken nane sae to blame as I would be
+mysel'."
+
+"Is na that makin' yersel' oot better nor ither fowk, lass?"
+
+"Gien I said I thoucht onything worth doin' but the wull o' God, I wad
+be a leear; gien I say man or woman has naething ither to do i' this
+warl' or the neist, I say it believin' ilkane o' them maun come til't at
+the lang last. Feow sees't yet, but the time's comin' when ilkabody will
+be as sure o' 't as I am. What won'er is't that I say't, wi' Jesus
+tellin' me the same frae mornin' to nicht!"
+
+"Lass, lass, I fear me, ye'll gang oot o' yer min'!"
+
+"It 'll be intil the mind o' Christ, then, mother! I dinna care for my
+ain min'. I hae nane o' my ain, an' will stick to His. Gien I dinna mak
+His mine, and stick til't, I'm lost! Noo, mother, I'll set the things,
+and run ower to the hoose, and lat An'rew ken I'm here!"
+
+"As ye wull, lass! ye'r ayont me! I s' say naething anent a willfu'
+woman, for ye've been aye a guid dochter. I trust I hae risen to houp
+the Lord winna be disappointit in ye."
+
+Dawtie found Andrew in the stable, suppering his horses, told him she
+had something to talk to him about, and asked if he would let her go
+with him in his walk the next day. Andrew was delighted to see her, but
+he did not say so; and she was back before her mother had taken the milk
+from the press. In a few minutes her father appeared, and welcomed her
+with a sober joy. As they eat their supper, he could not keep his eyes
+off her, she sat looking so well and nice and trim. He was a
+good-looking, work-worn man, his hands absolutely horny with labor. But
+inside many such horny husks are ripening beautiful kingdom hands, for
+the time when "dear welcome Death" will loose and let us go from the
+grave-clothes of the body that bind some of us even hand and foot.
+Rugged father and withered mother were beautiful in the eyes of Dawtie,
+and she and God saw them better than any other. Good, endless good was
+on the way to them all! It was so pleasant to be waiting for the best of
+all good things.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+ANDREW AND DAWTIE.
+
+Dawtie slept in peace and happy dreams till the next morning, when she
+was up almost with the sun, and out in his low clear light. For the sun
+was strong again; the red labor and weariness were gone from his shining
+face. Everything about her seemed to know God, or at least to have had a
+moment's gaze upon Him. How else could everything look so content,
+hopeful and happy. It is the man who will not fall in with the Father's
+bliss to whom the world seems soulless and dull. Dawtie was at peace
+because she desired nothing but what she knew He was best pleased to
+give her. Even had she cherished for Andrew the kind of love her mother
+feared, her Lord's will would have been her comfort and strength. If any
+one say: "Then she could not know what love is!" I answer: "That person
+does not know what the better love is that lifts the being into such a
+serene air that it can fast from many things and yet be blessed beyond
+what any other granted desire could make it." The scent of the
+sweet-pease growing against the turf wall entered Dawtie's soul like a
+breath from the fields of heaven, where the children made merry with the
+angels, the merriest of playfellows, and the winds and waters, and all
+the living things, and all the things half alive, all the flowers and
+all the creatures, were at their sportive call; where the little ones
+had babies to play with, and did not hurt them, and where dolls were
+neither loved nor missed, being never thought of. Suchlike were the
+girl's imaginings as her thoughts went straying, inventing, discovering.
+She did not fear the Father would be angry with her for being His child,
+and playing at creation. Who, indeed, but one that in loving heart can
+_make_, can rightly love the making of the Maker!
+
+When they had had their breakfast, and the old people were ready for
+church--where they would listen a little, sleep a little, sing heartily,
+and hear nothing to wake hunger, joy or aspiration, Dawtie put a piece
+of oat-cake in her pocket, and went to join Andrew where they had made
+their tryst and where she found him waiting--at his length in a bush of
+heather, with Henry Vaughan's "Silex Scintillans," drawing from it
+"bright shoots of everlastingness" for his Sabbath day's delight. He
+read one or two of the poems to Dawtie, who was pleased but not
+astonished--she was never astonished at anything; she had nothing in her
+to make anything beautiful by contrast; her mind was of beauty itself,
+and anything beautiful was to her but in the order and law of
+things--what was to be expected. Nothing struck her because of its
+rarity; the rare was at home in her country, and she was at home with
+it. When, for instance, he read: "Father of lights, what sunny seeds,"
+she took it up at once and understood it, felt that the good man had
+said the thing that was to be said, and loved him for it. She was not
+surprised to hear that the prayer was more than two hundred years old;
+were there not millions of years in front? why should it be wonderful
+that a few years behind men should have thought and felt as she did, and
+been able to say it as she never could! Had she not always loved the
+little cocks, and watched them learning to crow?
+
+"But, An'rew," she said at length, "I want to tell ye something that's
+troublin' me; then ye can learn me what ye like."
+
+"Tell on, Dawtie," said Andrew; and she began.
+
+"Ae nicht aboot a fornight ago, I couldna sleep. I drave a' the sheep I
+could gether i' my brain, ower ae stile efter anither, but the sleep
+stack to the woo' o' them, an' ilk ane took o' 't awa' wi' him. I wadna
+hae tried, but that I had to be up ear', and I was feared I wad sleep
+in."
+
+For the sake of my more polished readers--I do not say more _refined_,
+for polish and refinement may be worlds apart--I will give the rest in
+modern English.
+
+"So I got up, and thought to sweep and dust the hall and the stairs;
+then if, when I lay down again, I should sleep too long, there would be
+a part of the day's work done! You know, Andrew, what the house is like;
+at the top of the stair that begins directly you enter the house, there
+is a big irregular place, bigger than the floor of your barn, laid with
+flags. It is just as if all the different parts of the house had been
+built at different times round about it, and then it was itself roofed
+in by an after-thought. That's what we call _the hall_. The spare room
+opens on the left at the top of the stair, and to the right, across the
+hall, beyond the swell of the short thick tower you see the half of
+outside, is the door of the study. It is all round with books--some of
+them, mistress says, worth their weight in gold, they are so scarce. But
+the master trusts me to dust them. He used to do it himself; but now
+that he is getting old, he does not like the trouble, and it makes him
+asthmatic. He says books more need dusting than anything else, but are
+in more danger of being hurt by it, and it makes him nervous to see me
+touch them. I have known him stand an hour watching me while I dusted,
+looking all the time as if he had just taken a dose of medicine. So I
+often do a few books at a time, as I can, when he is not in the way to
+be worried with it. But he always knows where I have been with my duster
+and long-haired brush. And now it came across me that I had better dust
+some books first of all, as it was a good chance, he being sound asleep.
+So I lighted my lamp, went straight to the study, and began where I last
+left off.
+
+"As I was dusting, one of the books I came to looked so new and
+different from the rest that I opened it to see what it was like inside.
+It was full of pictures of mugs, and gold and silver jugs and cups--some
+of them plain and some colored; and one of the colored ones was so
+beautiful that I stood and looked at it. It was a gold cup, I suppose,
+for it was yellow; and all round the edge, and on the sides, it was set
+with stones, like the stones in mistress's rings, only much bigger. They
+were blue and red and green and yellow, and more colors than I can
+remember. The book said it was made by somebody, but I forget his name.
+It was a long name. The first part of it began with a _B_, and the
+second with a _C_, I remember that much. It was like _Benjamin_, but it
+wasn't _Benjamin_. I put it back in its place, thinking I would ask the
+master whether there really were such beautiful things, and took down
+the next. Now whether that had been passed over between two batches I
+don't know, but it was so dusty that before I would touch another I gave
+the duster a shake, and the wind of it blew the lamp out I took it up to
+take it to the kitchen and kindle it again, when, to my astonishment, I
+saw a light under the door of a press which was always locked, and where
+master said he kept his most precious books. 'How strange!' I thought;
+'a light inside a locked cupboard!' Then I remembered how in one place
+where I had been there was, in a room over the stable, a press whose
+door had no fastening except a bolt on the inside, which set me
+thinking, and some terrible things came to me that made me remember it.
+So now I said to myself: 'There's some one in there, after master's
+books!' It was not a likely thing, but the night is the time for
+fancies, and in the night you don't know what is likely and what is not.
+One thing, however, was clear--I ought to find out what the light meant.
+Fearful things darted one after the other through my head as I went to
+the door, but there was one thing I dared not do, and that was to leave
+it unopened. So I opened it as softly as I could, in terror lest the
+thief should hear my heart beating. When I could peep in what do you
+think I saw? I could not believe my eyes! There was a great big room! I
+rubbed my eyes, and stared; and rubbed them again and stared--thinking
+to rub it away; but there it was, a big odd-shaped room, part of it with
+round sides, and in the middle of the room a table, and on the table a
+lamp, burning as I had never seen lamp burn, and master at the table
+with his back to me. I was so astonished I forgot that I had no business
+there, and ought to go away. I stood like an idiot, mazed and lost. And
+you will not wonder when I tell you that the laird was holding up to the
+light, between his two hands, the very cup I had been looking at in the
+book, the stones of it flashing all the colors of the rainbow. I should
+think it a dream, if I did not _know_ it was not. I do not believe I
+made any noise, for I could not move, but he started up with a cry to
+God to preserve him, set the cup on the table, threw something over it,
+caught up a wicked-looking knife, and turned round. His face was like
+that of a corpse, and I could see him tremble. I stood steady; it was no
+time then to turn away. I supposed he expected to see a robber, and
+would be glad when he discovered it was only me; but when he did his
+fear changed to anger, and he came at me. His eyes were flaming, and he
+looked as if he would kill me. I was not frightened--poor old man, I was
+able for him any day!--but I was afraid of hurting him. So I closed the
+door quickly, and went softly to my own room, where I stood a long time
+in the dark, listening, but heard nothing more. What am I to do,
+Andrew?"
+
+"I don't know that you have to do anything. You have one thing not to
+do, that is--tell anybody what you have seen."
+
+"I was forced to tell _you_ because I did not know what to do. It makes
+me _so_ sorry!"
+
+"It was no fault of yours. You acted to the best of your knowledge, and
+could not help what came of it. Perhaps nothing more will come. Leave
+the thing alone, and if he say anything tell him how it happened."
+
+"But, Andrew, I don't think you see what it is that troubles me. I am
+afraid my master is a miser. The mistress and he take their meals, like
+poor people, in the kitchen. That must be the dining-room of the
+house!--and though my eyes were tethered to the flashing cup, I could
+not help seeing it was full of strange and beautiful things. Among them,
+I knew, by pictures I had seen, the armor of knights, when they fought
+on their horses' backs. Before people had money they must have misered
+other things. Some girls miser their clothes, and never go decent!"
+
+"Suppose him a miser," said Andrew, "what could you do? How are you to
+help it?"
+
+"That's what I want to know. I love my master, and there must be a way
+to help it. It was terrible to see him, in the middle of the night,
+gazing at that cup as if he had found the most precious thing that can
+ever have existed on the earth."
+
+"What was that?" asked Andrew.
+
+He delighted in Dawtie's talk. It was like an angel's, he said, both in
+its ignorance and its wisdom.
+
+"You can't have forgotten, Andrew. It's impossible!" she answered. "I
+heard you say yourself!"
+
+Andrew smiled.
+
+"I know," he said.
+
+"Poor man!" resumed Dawtie; "he looked at the cup as you might at that
+manuscript! His soul was at it, feasting upon it! Now wasn't that
+miserly?"
+
+"It was like it."
+
+"And I love my master," repeated Dawtie, thus putting afresh the
+question what she was to do.
+
+"Why do you love him, Dawtie?" asked Andrew.
+
+"Because I'm set to love him. Besides, we're told to love our
+enemies--then surely we're to love our friends. He has always been a
+friend to me. He never said a hard word to me, even when I was handling
+his books. He trusts me with them! I can't help loving him--a good deal,
+Andrew! And it's what I've got to do!"
+
+"There's not a doubt about it, Dawtie. You've got to love him, and you
+do love him!"
+
+"But there's more than that, Andrew. To hear the laird talk you would
+think he cared more for the Bible than for the whole world--not to say
+gold cups. He talks of the merits of the Saviour, that you would think
+he loved Him with all his heart. But I can not get it out of my mind,
+ever since I saw that look on his face, that he loves that cup--that
+it's his graven image--his idol! How else should he get up in the middle
+of the night to--to--to--well, it was just like worshiping it."
+
+"You're afraid then that he's a hypocrite, Dawtie!"
+
+"No; I daren't think that--if it were only for fear I should stop loving
+him--and that would be as bad!"
+
+"As bad as what, Dawtie?"
+
+"I don't always know what I'm going to say," answered Dawtie, a little
+embarrassed, "and then when I've said it I have to look what it means.
+But isn't it as bad not to love a human being as it would be to love a
+thing?"
+
+"Perhaps worse," said Andrew.
+
+"Something must be done!" she went on. "He can't be left like that! But
+if he has any love to his Master, how is it that the love of that Master
+does not cast out the love of Mammon? I can't understand it."
+
+"You have asked a hard question, Dawtie. But a cure may be going on, and
+take a thousand years or ages to work it out."
+
+"What if it shouldn't be begun yet."
+
+"That would be terrible."
+
+"What then am I to do, Andrew? You always say we must _do_ something!
+You say there is no faith but what _does_ something!"
+
+"The apostle James said so, a few years before I was born, Dawtie!"
+
+"Don't make fun of me--please, Andrew! I like it, but I can't bear it
+to-day, my head is so full of the poor old laird!"
+
+"Make fun of you, Dawtie! Never! But I don't know yet how to answer
+you."
+
+"Well, then, what _am_ I to do?" persisted Dawtie.
+
+"Wait, of course, till you know what to do. When you don't know what to
+do, don't do anything--only keep asking the Thinker for wisdom. And
+until you know, don't let the laird see that you know anything."
+
+With this answer Dawtie was content.
+
+Business was over, and they turned to go home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+DAWTIE AND THE CUP.
+
+The old man had a noteworthy mental fabric. Believing himself a true
+lover of literature, and especially of poetry, he would lecture for ten
+minutes on the right mode of reading a verse in Hilton or Dante; but as
+to Satan or Beatrice, would pin his faith to the majority of the
+commentators: Milton's Satan was too noble, and Beatrice was no woman,
+but Theology. He was discriminative to a degree altogether admirable as
+to the brightness or wrongness of a proposition with regard to conduct,
+but owed his respectability to good impulses without any effort of the
+will. He was almost as orthodox as Paul before his conversion, lacking
+only the heart and the courage to persecute. Whatever the eternal wisdom
+saw in him, the thing most present to his own consciousness was the love
+of rare historic relics. And this love was so mingled in warp and woof,
+that he did not know whether a thing was more precious to him for its
+rarity, its money value, or its historico-reliquary interest. All the
+time he was a school-master, he saved every possible half-penny to buy
+books, not because of their worth or human interest, but because of
+their literary interest, or the scarcity of the book or edition. In the
+holidays he would go about questing for the prey that his soul loved,
+hunting after precious things; but not even the precious things of the
+everlasting hills would be precious to him until they had received the
+stamp of curiosity. His life consisted in a continual search for
+something new that was known as known of old. It had hardly yet occurred
+to him that he must one day leave his things and exist without them, no
+longer to brood over them, take them in his hands, turn, and stroke, and
+admire them; yet, strange to say, he would at times anxiously seek to
+satisfy himself that he was safe for a better world, as he _called_
+it--to feel certain, that is, that his faith was of the sort he supposed
+intended by Paul--not that he had himself gathered anything from the
+apostle, but all from the traditions of his church concerning the
+teaching of the apostle. He was anxious, I say, as to his safety for the
+world to come, and yet, while his dearest joy lay treasured in that
+hidden room, he never thought of the hour when he must leave it all, and
+go houseless and pocketless, empty-handed if not armless, in the wide,
+closetless space, hearing ever in the winds and the rain and the sound
+of the sea-waves, the one question--"Whose shall those things be which
+thou hast provided?" Like the rich man to whom God said the words, he
+had gathered much goods for many years--hundreds and hundreds of things,
+every one of which he knew, and every one of which he loved. A new
+scratch on the bright steel of one of his suits of armor was a scratch
+on his heart; the moth and the rust troubled him sore, for he could not
+keep them away; and where his treasure was, there was his heart,
+devoured by the same moth, consumed by the same rust. He had much
+suffering from his possessions--was more exposed to misery than the
+miser of gold, for the hoarded coin of the latter may indeed be stolen,
+but he fears neither moth nor rust nor scratch nor decay. The laird
+cherished his things as no mother her little ones. Nearly sixty years he
+had been gathering them, and their money-worth was great, but he had no
+idea of its amount, for he could not have endured the exposure and
+handling of them which a valuation must involve.
+
+His love for his books had somewhat declined in the growth of his love
+for things, and now, by degrees not very slow, his love for his things
+was graduating itself after what he supposed their money-value. His soul
+not only clave to the dust but was going deeper and deeper in the dust
+as it wallowed. All day long he was living in the past and growing old
+in it--it is one thing to grow old in the past, and another to grow old
+in the present! As he took his walk about his farms, or sat at his
+meals, or held a mild, soulless conversation with his daughter, his
+heart was growing old, not healthily in the present, which is to ripen,
+but unwholesomely in the past, which is to consume with a dry rot. While
+he read the Bible at prayers, trying hard to banish worldly things from
+his mind, his thoughts were not in the story or the argument he read,
+but hovering, like a bird over its nest, about the darlings of his
+heart. Yea, even while he prayed, his soul, instead of casting off the
+clay of the world, was loaded and dragged down with all the
+still-moldering, slow-changing things that lined the walls and filled
+the drawers and cabinets of his treasure-chamber. It was a place of
+whose existence not even his daughter knew; for before ever she entered
+the house, he had taken with him a mason from the town, and built up the
+entrance to it from the hall, ever afterward keeping the other door of
+it that opened from his study carefully locked, and leaving it to be
+regarded as the door of a closet.
+
+It was as terrible as Dawtie felt it, that a live human soul should thus
+haunt the sepulcher of the past, and love the lifeless, turning a room
+hitherto devoted to hospitality and mirthful intercourse into the temple
+of his selfish idolatry. It was as one of the rooms carved for the dead
+in the Beban El Malook. Sure, if left to himself, the ghost that loved
+it would haunt the place! But he could not surely be permitted! for it
+might postpone a thousand years his discovery of the emptiness of a
+universe of such treasures. Now he was moldering into the world of
+spirits in the heart of an avalanche of the dust of ages, dust material
+from his hoards, dust moral and spiritual from his withering soul
+itself.
+
+The next day he was ill, which, common as is illness to humanity, was
+strange, for it had never befallen him before. He was unable to leave
+his bed. But he never said a word to his daughter, who alone waited on
+him, as to what had happened in the night. He had passed it sleepless,
+and without the possibility of a dream on which to fall back; yet, when
+morning came, he was in much doubt whether what he had seen--the face,
+namely, of Dawtie, peeping in at the door--was a reality, or but a
+vision of the night. For when he opened the door which she had closed,
+all was dark, and not the slightest sound reached his quick ear from the
+swift foot of her retreat. He turned the key twice, and pushed two
+bolts, eager to regard the vision as a providential rebuke of his
+carelessness in leaving the door on the latch--for the first time, he
+imagined. Then he tottered back to his chair, and sunk on it in a cold
+sweat. For, although the confidence grew, that what he had seen was but
+
+                a false creation
+  Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain,
+
+it was far from comfortable to feel that he could no longer depend upon
+his brain to tell him only the thing that was true. What if he were
+going out of his mind, on the way to encounter a succession of
+visions--without reality, but possessed of its power! What if they
+should be such whose terror would compel him to disclose what most he
+desired to keep covered? How fearful to be no more his own master, but
+at the beck and call of a disordered brain, a maniac king in a _cosmos
+acosmos_! Better it had been Dawtie, and she had seen in his hands
+Benvenuto Cellini's chalice made for Pope Clement the Seventh to drink
+therefrom the holy wine--worth thousands of pounds! Perhaps she had seen
+it! No, surely she had not! He must be careful not to make her suspect!
+He would watch her and say nothing!
+
+But Dawtie, conscious of no wrong, and full of love to the old man,
+showed an untroubled face when next she met him; and he made up his mind
+that he would rather have her ignorant. Thenceforward, naturally though
+childishly, he was even friendlier to her than before: it was so great a
+relief to find that he had not to fear her!
+
+The next time Dawtie was dusting the books, she felt strongly drawn to
+look again at the picture of the cup: it seemed now to hold in it a
+human life! She took down the book, and began where she stood to read
+what it said about the chalice, referring as she read from letterpress
+to drawing. It was taken from an illumination in a missal, where the cup
+was known to have been copied; and it rendered the description in the
+letterpress unnecessary except in regard to the stones and _dessins
+repoussés_ on the hidden side. She quickly learned the names of the
+gems, that she might see how many were in the high-priest's breast-plate
+and the gates of the new Jerusalem, then proceeded to the history of the
+chalice. She read that it had come into the possession of Cardinal York,
+the brother of Charles Edward Stuart, and had been by him intrusted to
+his sister-in-law, the Duchess of Albany, from whose house it
+disappeared, some said stolen, others said sold. It came next to the
+historic surface in the possession of a certain earl whose love of
+curiosities was well known; but from his collection again it vanished,
+this time beyond a doubt stolen, and probably years before it was
+missed.
+
+A new train of thought was presently in motion in the mind of the girl:
+_The beautiful cup was stolen! it was not where it ought to be! it was
+not at home! it was a captive, a slave_! She lowered the book, half
+closed, with a finger between the leaves, and stood thinking. She did
+not for a moment believe her master had stolen it, though the fear did
+flash through her mind. It had been stolen and sold, and he had bought
+it at length of some one whose possession of it was nowise suspicious!
+But he must know now that it had been stolen, for here, with the cup,
+was the book which said so! That would be nothing if the rightful owner
+were not known, but he was known, and the thing ought to be his! The
+laird might not be bound, she was not sure, to restore it at his own
+loss, for when he bought it he was not aware that it was stolen; but he
+was bound to restore it at the price he had paid for it, if the former
+owner would give it! This was bare justice! mere righteousness! No theft
+could make the owner not the rightful owner, though other claims upon
+the thing might come in! One ought not to be enriched by another's
+misfortune! Dawtie was sure that a noble of the kingdom of heaven would
+not wait for the money, but would with delight send the cup where it
+ought to have been all the time! She knew better, however, than require
+magnificence in any shape from the poor wizened soul of her master--a
+man who knew all about everything, and whom yet she could not but fear
+to _be_ nothing: as Dawtie had learned to understand life, the laird did
+not yet exist. But he well knew right from wrong, therefore the
+discovery she just made affected her duty toward him! It might be
+impossible to make impression on the miserliness of a miser, but upon
+the honesty in a miser it might be possible! The goblet was not his!
+
+But the love of things dulls the conscience, and he might not be able,
+having bought and paid for it, to see that the thing was not therefore
+_his_! he might defend himself from seeing it! To Dawtie, this made the
+horror of his condition the darker. She was one of God's babes, who can
+not help seeing the true state of things. Logic was to her but the smoke
+that rose from the burning truth; she saw what is altogether above and
+beyond logic--the right thing, whose meanest servant, the hewer of its
+wood, not the drawer of its water, the merest scullion and sweeper away
+of lies from the pavement of its courts, is logic.
+
+With a sigh she woke to the knowledge that she was not doing her work,
+and rousing herself, was about to put the book on its shelf. But, her
+finger being still in the place, she would have one more glance at the
+picture! To her dismay she saw that she had made a mark on the plate,
+and of the enormity of making a dirty mark on a book her master had made
+her well aware.
+
+She was in great distress. What was to be done? She did not once think
+of putting it away and saying nothing. To have reasoned that her master
+would never know, would have been an argument, pressing and imperative,
+for informing him at once. She had done him an injury, and the injury
+must be confessed and lamented; it was all that was left to be done!
+"Sic a mischance!" she said, then bethought herself that there was no
+such thing as mischance, when immediately it flashed upon her that here
+was the door open for the doing of what was required of her. She was
+bound to confess the wrong, and that would lead in the disclosure of
+what she knew, rendering it comparatively easy to use some remonstrance
+with the laird, whom in her mind's eye she saw like a beggar man
+tottering down a steep road to a sudden precipice. Her duty was now so
+plain that she felt no desire to consult Andrew. She was not one to ask
+an opinion for the sake of talking opinion; she went to Andrew only when
+she wanted light to do the right thing; when the light was around her,
+she knew how to walk, and troubled no one.
+
+At once she laid down book and duster, and went to find the laird. But
+he had slipped away to the town, to have a rummage in a certain little
+shop in a back street, which he had not rummaged for a long time enough,
+he thought, to have let something come in. It was no relief to Dawtie:
+the thing would be all the day before her instead of behind her! It
+burned within her, not like a sin, but like what it was, a confession
+unconfessed. Little wrong as she had done, Dawtie was yet familiar with
+the lovely potency of confession to annihilate it. She knew it was the
+turning from wrong that killed it, that confession gave the _coup de
+grâce_ to offense. Still she dreaded not a little the displeasure of her
+master, and yet she dreaded more his distress.
+
+She prepared the laird's supper with a strange mingling of hope and
+anxiety: she feared having to go to bed without telling him. But he came
+at last, almost merry, with a brown paper parcel under his arm, over
+which he was very careful. Poor man, he little knew there waited him at
+the moment a demand from the eternal justice almost as terrible as:
+"This night they require thy soul of thee!"--(What a _they_ is that! Who
+are _they_?)--The torture of the moral rack was ready for him at the
+hands of his innocent house-maid! In no way can one torture another more
+than by waking conscience against love, passion, or pride.
+
+He laid his little parcel carefully on the supper-table, said rather a
+shorter grace than usual, began to eat his porridge, praised it as very
+good, spoke of his journey and whom he had seen, and was more talkative
+than his wont He informed Alexa, almost with jubilation, that he had at
+length found an old book he had been long on the watch for--a book that
+treated, in ancient broad Scots, of the laws of verse, in full, even
+exhaustive manner. He pulled it from his pocket.
+
+"It is worth at least ten times what I gave for it!" he said.
+
+Dawtie wondered whether there ought not to have been some division of
+the difference; but she was aware of no call to speak. One thing was
+enough for one night!
+
+Then came prayers. The old man read how David deceived the Philistines,
+telling them a falsehood as to his raids. He read the narrative with a
+solemnity of tone that would have graced the most righteous action: was
+it not the deed of a man according to God's own heart?--how could it be
+other than right! Casuist ten times a week, he made no question of the
+righteousness of David's wickedness! Then he prayed, giving thanks for
+the mercy that had surrounded them all the day, shielding them from the
+danger and death which lurked for them in every corner. What would he
+say when death did get him? Dawtie thought. Would he thank God then? And
+would he see, when she spoke to him, that God wanted to deliver him from
+a worse danger than any out-of-doors? Would he see that it was from much
+mercy he was made more uncomfortable than perhaps ever in his life
+before?
+
+At length his offering was completed--how far accepted who can tell! He
+was God's, and He who gave him being would be his Father to the full
+possibility of God. They rose from their knees; the laird took up his
+parcel and book; his daughter went with him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+DAWTIE AND THE LAIRD.
+
+As soon as Dawtie heard her mistress's door close, she followed her
+master to the study, and arrived just as the door of the hidden room was
+shut behind him. There was not a moment to be lost! She went straight to
+it, and knocked rather loud. No answer came. She knocked again. Still
+there was no answer. She knocked a third time, and after a little
+fumbling with the lock, the door opened a chink, and a ghastly face,
+bedewed with drops of terror, peeped through. She was standing a little
+back, and the eyes did not at once find the object they sought; then
+suddenly they lighted on her, and the laird shook from head to foot.
+
+"What is it, Dawtie?" he faltered out in a broken voice.
+
+"Please, sir," answered Dawtie, "I have something to confess: would ye
+hearken to me?"
+
+"No, no, Dawtie! I am sure you have nothing to confess!" returned the
+old man, eager to send her away, and to prevent her from seeing the
+importance of the room whose entrance she had discovered. "Or," he went
+on, finding she did not move, "if you have done anything, Dawtie, that
+you ought not to have done, confess it to God. It is to Him you must
+confess, not to a poor mortal like me! For my part, if it lies to me, I
+forgive you, and there is an end! Go to your bed, Dawtie."
+
+"Please, sir, I canna. Gien ye winna hear til me, I'll sit doon at the
+door o' this room, and sit till--"
+
+"What room, Dawtie? Call you this a room? It's a wee bit closet where I
+say my prayers before I go to bed."
+
+But as he spoke his blood ran cold within him, for he had uttered a
+deliberate lie--two lies in one breath: the bit closet was the largest
+room in the house, and he had never prayed a prayer in it since first he
+entered it! He was unspeakably distressed at what he had done, for he
+had always cherished the idea that he was one who would not lie to save
+his life. And now in his old age he had lied who when a boy had honor
+enough to keep him from lying! Worst of all, now that he had lied, he
+must hold to the lie! He _dared_ not confess it! He stood sick and
+trembling.
+
+"I'll wait, sir," said Dawtie, distressed at his suffering, and more
+distressed that he could lie who never forgot his prayers! Alas, he was
+further down the wrong road than she had supposed!
+
+Ashamed for his sake, and also for her own, to look him in the face--for
+did he not imagine she believed him, while she knew that he lied?--she
+turned her back on him. He caught at his advantage, glided out, and
+closed the door behind him. When Dawtie again turned, she saw him in her
+power.
+
+Her trial was come; she had to speak for life or death! But she
+remembered that the Lord told His disciples to take no care how they
+should speak; for when the time came it would be given them to speak. So
+she began by simply laying down the thing that was in her hand.
+
+"Sir," she said, "I am very sorry, but this morning I made a dirty mark
+in one of your books!"
+
+Her words alarmed him a little, and made him forget for the instant his
+more important fears. But he took care to be gentle with her; it would
+not do to offend her! for was she not aware that where they stood was a
+door by which he went in and out?
+
+"You make me uneasy, Dawtie!" he said. "What book was it? Let me see
+it."
+
+"I will, sir."
+
+She turned to take it down, but the laird followed her, saying:
+
+"Point it out to me, Dawtie. I will get it."
+
+She did so. It opened at the plate.
+
+"There is the mark!" she said. "I am right sorry."
+
+"So am I!" returned the laird. "But," he added, willing she should feel
+his clemency, and knowing the book was not a rare one, "it is a book
+still, and you will be more careful another time! For you must remember,
+Dawtie, that you don't come into this room to read the books, but to
+dust them. You can go to bed now with an easy mind, I hope!"
+
+Dawtie was so touched by the kindness and forbearance of her master that
+the tears rose in her eyes, and she felt strengthened for her task. What
+would she not have encountered for his deliverance!
+
+"Please, sir," she said, "let me show you a thing you never perhaps
+happened to read!" And taking the book from his hand--he was too much
+astonished to retain it--she turned over the engraving, and showed him
+the passage which stated that the cup had disappeared from the
+possession of its owner, and had certainly been stolen.
+
+Finding he said not a word, she ventured to lift her eyes to his, and
+saw again the corpse-like face that had looked through the chink of the
+door.
+
+"What do you mean?" he stammered. "I do not understand!"
+
+His lips trembled: was it possible he had had to do with the stealing of
+it?
+
+The truth was this: he had learned the existence of the cup from this
+very book; and had never rested until, after a search of more than ten
+years, he at length found it in the hands of a poor man who dared not
+offer it for sale. Once in his possession, the thought of giving it up,
+or of letting the owner redeem it, had never even occurred to him. Yet
+the treasure made him rejoice with a trembling which all his casuistry
+would have found it hard to explain; for he would not confess to himself
+its real cause--namely, that his God-born essence was uneasy with a
+vague knowledge that it lay in the bosom of a thief. "Don't you think,
+sir," said Dawtie, "that whoever has that cup ought to send it back to
+the place it was stolen from?"
+
+Had the old man been a developed hypocrite, he would have replied at
+once: "He certainly ought." But by word of mouth to condemn himself
+would have been to acknowledge to himself that he ought to send the cup
+home, and this he dared not do. Men who will not do as they know, make
+strange confusion in themselves. The worst rancor in the vessel of peace
+is the consciousness of wrong in a not all-unrighteous soul. The laird
+was false to his own self, but to confess himself false would be to
+initiate a change which would render life worthless to him! What would
+all his fine things be without their heart of preciousness, the one
+jewel that now was nowhere in the world but in his house, in the secret
+chamber of his treasures, which would be a rifled case without it! As is
+natural to one who will not do right, he began to argue the moral
+question, treating it as a point of casuistry that troubled the mind of
+the girl.
+
+"I don't know that, Dawtie!" he said. "It is not likely that the person
+that has the cup, whoever he may be--that is, if the cup be still in
+existence--is the same who stole it; and it would hardly be justice to
+punish the innocent for the guilty?--as would be the case, if, supposing
+I had bought the cup, I had to lose the money I paid for it. Should the
+man who had not taken care of his cup have his fault condoned at my
+expense? Did he not deserve, the many might say, to be so punished,
+placing huge temptation in the path of the needy, to the loss of their
+precious souls, and letting a priceless thing go loose in the world, to
+work ruin to whoever might innocently buy it?"
+
+His logic did not serve to show him the falsehood of his reasoning, for
+his heart was in the lie. "Ought I or he," he went on, "to be punished
+because he kept the thing ill? And how far would the quixotic obligation
+descend? A score of righteous men may by this time have bought and sold
+the cup!--is it some demon-talisman, that the last must meet the
+penalty, when the original owner, or some descendant of the man who lost
+it, chooses to claim it? For anything we know, he may himself have
+pocketed the price of the rumored theft! Can you not see it would be a
+flagrant injustice?--fit indeed to put an end to all buying and selling!
+It would annihilate transfer of property! Possession would mean only
+strength to keep, and the world would fall into confusion."
+
+"It would be hard, I grant," confessed Dawtie; "but the man who has it
+ought at least to give the head of the family in which it had been the
+chance of buying it back at the price it cost him. If he could not buy
+it back--then the thing would have to be thought over."
+
+"I confess I don't see the thing," returned the laird. "But the question
+needs not keep you out of bed, Dawtie! It is not often a girl in your
+position takes an interest in the abstract! Besides," he resumed,
+another argument occurring to him, "a thing of such historical value and
+interest ought to be where it was cared for, not where it was in danger
+every moment."
+
+"There might be something in that," allowed Dawtie, "if it were where
+everybody could see it. But where is the good if it be but for the eyes
+of one man?"
+
+The eyes she meant fixed themselves upon her till their gaze grew to a
+stony stare. She _must_ know that he had it! Or did she only suspect? He
+must not commit himself! He must set a watch on the door of his lips!
+What an uncomfortable girl to have in the house! Oh, those
+self-righteous Ingrams! What mischief they did! His impulse was to dart
+into his treasure-cave, lock himself in, and hug the radiant chalice. He
+dared not. He must endure instead the fastidious conscience and probing
+tongue of an intrusive maid-servant!
+
+"But," he rejoined, with an attempt at a smile, "if the pleasure the one
+man took in it should, as is easy to imagine, exceed immeasurably the
+aggergate pleasure of the thousands that would look upon it and pass it
+by--what then?"
+
+"The man would enjoy it the more that many saw it--except he loved it
+for greed, when he would be rejoicing in iniquity, for the cup would not
+be his. And anyhow, he could not take it with him when he died!"
+
+The face of the miser grew grayer; his lip trembled; but he said
+nothing. He was beginning to hate Dawtie. She was an enemy! She sought
+his discomfiture, his misery! He had read strange things in certain old
+books, and half believed some of them: what if Dawtie was one of those
+evil powers that haunt a man in pleasant shape, learn the secrets of his
+heart, and gain influence over him that they may tempt him to yield his
+soul to the enemy! She was set on ruining him! Certainly she knew that
+cup was in his possession! He must temporize! He must _seem_ to listen!
+But as soon as fit reason could be found, such as would neither
+compromise him nor offend her, she must be sent away! And of all things,
+she must not gain the means of proving what she now perhaps only
+suspected, and was seeking assurance of! He stood thinking. It was but
+for a moment; for the very next words from the lips of the girl that was
+to him little more than a house-broom, set him face to face with
+reality--the one terror of the unreal.
+
+"Eh, maister, sir," said Dawtie, with the tears in her eyes, and now at
+last breaking down in her English, "dinna ye _ken_ 'at ye _hae_ to gie
+the man 'at aucht that gowden bicker, the chance o' buyin' 't back?"
+
+The laird shivered. He dared not say: "How do you know?" for he dared
+not hear the thing proved to him. If she did know, he would not front
+her proof! He would not have her even suppose it an acknowledged fact!
+
+"If I had the cup," he began--but she interrupted him: it was time they
+should have done with lying!
+
+"Ye ken ye hae the cup, sir!" she said. "And I ken tu, for I saw 't i'
+yer han's!"
+
+"You shameless, prying hussy!" he began, in a rage at last--but the
+eager, tearful earnestness of her face made him bethink himself: it
+would not do to make an enemy of her! "Tell me, Dawtie," he said, with
+sudden change of tone, "how it was you came to see it."
+
+She told him all--how and when; and he knew that he had seen her see
+him.
+
+He managed to give a poor little laugh.
+
+"All is not gold that glitters, Dawtie!" he said. "The cup you saw was
+not the one in the book, but an imitation of it--mere gilded tin and
+colored glass--copied from the picture, as near as they could make
+it--just to see better what it must have been like. Why, my good girl,
+that cup would be worth thousands of pounds! So go to bed, and don't
+trouble yourself about gold cups. It is not likely any of them will come
+our way!"
+
+Simple as Dawtie was, she did not believe him. But she saw no good to be
+done by disputing what he ought to know.
+
+"It wasna aboot the gold cup I was troublin' mysel'!" she said,
+hesitatingly.
+
+"You are right there!" he replied, with another deathly laugh, "it was
+not! But you have been troubling me about nothing half the night, and I
+am shivering with cold! We really must, both of us, go to bed! What
+would your mistress say!"
+
+"No," persisted Dawtie, "it wasna aboot the cup, gowd or no gowd; it was
+and is aboot my maister I'm troubled! I'm terrible feart for ye, sir!
+Ye're a worshiper o' Mammon, sir!"
+
+The laird laughed, for the danger was over!--to Dawtie's deep dismay he
+laughed!
+
+"My poor girl," he said, "you take an innocent love of curious things
+for the worship of Mammon! Don't imagine me jesting. How could you
+believe an old man like me, an elder of the kirk, a dispenser of her
+sacred things, guilty of the awful crime of Mammon worship?"
+
+He imagined her ignorantly associating the idea of some idolatrous
+ritual with what to him was but a phrase--the worship of Mammon. "Do you
+not remember," he continued, "the words of Christ, that a man _can not_
+serve God and Mammon? If I be a Christian, as you will hardly doubt, it
+follows that I am not a worshiper of Mammon, for the two can not go
+together."
+
+"But that's just the question, sir! A man who worships God, worships Him
+with his whole heart and soul and strength and mind. If he wakes at
+night, it is to worship God; if he is glad in his heart, it is because
+God is, and one day he shall behold His face in brightness. If a man
+worships God, he loves Him so that no love can come between him and God;
+if the earth were removed, and the mountains cast into the midst of the
+sea, it would be all one to him, for God would be all the same. Is it
+not so, sir?"
+
+"You are a good girl, Dawtie, and I approve of every word you say. It
+would more than savor of presumption to profess that I loved God up to
+the point you speak of; but I deserve to love Him. Doubtless a man ought
+to love God so, and we are all sinners just because we do not love God
+so. But we have the atonement!"
+
+"But, sir," answered Dawtie, the silent tears running down her face, "I
+love God that way! I don't care a dust for anything without Him! When I
+go to bed, I don't care if I never wake again in this world; I shall be
+where He would have me!"
+
+"You presume, Dawtie! I fear me much you presume! What if that should be
+in hell?"
+
+"If it be, it will be the best. It will be to set me right. Oh, sir, He
+is so good! Tell me one thing, sir: when you die--"
+
+"Tut, tut, lass! we're not come to that yet! There's no occasion to
+think about that yet awhile! We're in the hands of a reconciled God."
+
+"What I want to know," pursued Dawtie, "is how you will feel, how you
+will get on when you haven't got anything!"
+
+"Not got anything, girl! Are you losing your senses? Of course we shall
+want nothing then! I shall have to talk to the doctor about you! We
+shall have you killing us in our beds to know how we like it!"
+
+He laughed; but it was a rather scared laugh.
+
+"What I mean," she persisted, "is--when you have no body, and no hands
+to take hold of your cap, what will you do without it?"
+
+"What if I leave it to you, Dawtie!" returned the laird, with a stupid
+mixture of joke and avarice in his cold eye.
+
+"Please, sir, I didn't say what you would do with it, but what would you
+do without it when it will neither come out of your heart nor into your
+hands! It must be misery to a miser to _have_ nothing!"
+
+"A miser, hussy!"
+
+"A lover of things, more than a lover of God!"
+
+"Well, perhaps you have the better of me!" he said, after a cowed pause;
+for he perceived there was no compromise possible with Dawtie: she knew
+perfectly what she meant; and he could neither escape her logic, nor
+change her determination, whatever that might be. "I dare say you are
+right! I will think what ought to be done about that cup!"
+
+He stopped, self amazed: he had committed himself!--as much as confessed
+the cup genuine! But Dawtie had not been deceived, and had not been
+thinking about the cup. Only it was plain that, if he would consent to
+part with it for its money-worth, that would be a grand beginning toward
+the renouncing of dead _things_ altogether, toward the turning to the
+living One the love that now gathered, clinging and haunting, about gold
+cups and graved armor, and suchlike vapors and vanishings, that pass
+with the sunsets and the snows. She fell on her knees, and, in the
+spirit of a child and of the apostle of the Gentiles, cried, laying her
+little red hands together and uplifting them to her master in purest
+entreaty.
+
+"Oh, laird, laird, ye've been gude and kin' to me, and I lo'e ye, the
+Lord kens! I pray ye for Christ's sake be reconciled to God, for ye hae
+been servin' Mammon and no Him, and ye hae jist said we canna serve the
+twa, and what 'ill come o' 't God only can tell, but it _maun_ be
+misery!"
+
+Words failed her. She rose, and left the room, with her apron to her
+eyes.
+
+The laird stood a moment or two like one lost, then went hurriedly into
+his "closet," and shut the door. Whether he went on his knees to God as
+did Dawtie to Him, or began again to gloat over his Cellini goblet, I do
+not know.
+
+Dawtie cried herself to sleep, and came down in the morning very pale.
+Her duty had left her exhausted, and with a kind of nausea toward all
+the ornaments and books in the house. A cock crew loud under the window
+of the kitchen. She dropped on her knees, said "Father of lights!" not a
+word beside, rose and began to rouse the fire.
+
+When breakfast-time came, and the laird appeared, he looked much as
+usual, only a little weary, which his daughter set down to his journey
+the day before. He revived, however, as soon as he had succeeded in
+satisfying himself that Alexa knew nothing of what had passed. How
+staid, discreet, and compact of common sense Alexa seemed to him beside
+Dawtie, whose want of education left her mind a waste swamp for the
+vagaries of whatever will-o'-the-wisp an overstrained religious fantasy
+might generate! But however much the laird might look the same as
+before, he could never, knowing that Dawtie knew what she knew, be again
+as he had been.
+
+"You'll do a few of the books to-day, won't you, Dawtie," he said, "when
+you have time? I never thought I should trust any one! I would sooner
+have old Meg shave me than let her dust an Elzevir! Ha! ha! ha!"
+
+Dawtie was glad that at least he left the door open between them. She
+said she would do a little dusting in the afternoon, and would be very
+careful. Then the laird rose and went out, and Dawtie perceived, with a
+shoot of compassion mingled with mild remorse, that he had left his
+breakfast almost untasted.
+
+But after that, so far from ever beginning any sort of conversation with
+her, he seemed uncomfortable the moment they happened to be alone
+together. If he caught her eye, he would say--hurriedly, and as if
+acknowledging a secret between them, "By and by, Dawtie;" or, "I'm
+thinking about the business, Dawtie;" or, "I'm making up my mind,
+Dawtie!" and so leave her. On one occasion he said, "Perhaps you will be
+surprised some day, Dawtie!"
+
+On her part Dawtie never felt that she had anything more to say to him.
+She feared at times that she had done him evil rather than good by
+pressing upon him a duty she had not persuaded him to perform. She spoke
+of this fear to Andrew, but he answered decisively:
+
+"If you believed you ought to speak to him, and have discovered in
+yourself no wrong motive, you must not trouble yourself about the
+result. That may be a thousand years off yet. You may have sent him into
+a hotter purgatory, and at the same time made it shorter for him. We
+know nothing but that God is righteous."
+
+Dawtie was comforted, and things went on as before. Where people know
+their work and do it, life has few blank spaces for ennui, and they are
+seldom to be pitied. Where people have not yet found their work, they
+may be more to be pitied than those that beg their bread. When a man
+knows his work and will not do it, pity him more than one who is to be
+hanged to-morrow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+ANDREW AND ALEXA.
+
+Andrew had occasion to call on the laird to pay his father's rent, and
+Alexa, who had not seen him for some time, thought him improved both in
+carriage and speech, and wondered. She did not take into account his
+intercourse with God, as with highest human minds, and his constant
+wakefulness to carry into action what things he learned. Thus trained in
+noblest fashions of freedom, it was small wonder that his bearing and
+manners, the natural outcome and expression of his habits of being,
+should grow in liberty. There was in them the change only of
+development. By the side of such education as this, dealing with reality
+and inborn dignity, what mattered any amount of ignorance as to social
+custom! Society may judge its own; this man was not of it, and as much
+surpassed its most accomplished pupils in all the essentials of
+breeding, as the apostle Paul was a better gentleman than Mr. Nash or
+Mr. Brummel. The training may be slow, but it is perfect. To him who has
+yielded self, all things are possible. Andrew was aware of no
+difference. He seemed to himself the same as when a boy.
+
+Alexa had not again alluded to his brother's letter concerning George
+Crawford, fearing he might say what she would find unpleasant. But now
+she wanted to get a definite opinion from him in regard to certain modes
+of money-making, which had naturally of late occupied a good deal of her
+thought.
+
+"What is your notion concerning money-lending--I mean at interest, Mr.
+Ingram?" she said. "I hear it is objected to nowadays by some that set
+up for teachers!"
+
+"It is by no means the first time in the world's history," answered
+Andrew.
+
+"I want to know what you think of it, Mr. Ingram?"
+
+"I know little," replied Andrew, "of any matter with which I have not
+had to deal practically."
+
+"But ought not one to have his ideas ready for the time when we will
+have to deal practically?" said Alexa.
+
+"Mine would be pretty sure to be wrong," answered Andrew; "and there is
+no time to spend in gathering wrong ideas and then changing them!"
+
+"On the contrary, they would be less warped by personal interest."
+
+"Could circumstances arise in which it would not be my first interest to
+be honest?" said Andrew. "Would not my judgment be quickened by the
+compulsion and the danger? In no danger myself, might I not judge too
+leniently of things from which I should myself recoil? Selfishly
+smoother with regard to others, because less anxious about their honesty
+than my own, might I not yield them what, were I in the case, I should
+see at once I dared not allow to myself? I can perceive no use in making
+up my mind how to act in circumstances in which I am not--probably will
+never be. I have enough to occupy me where I find myself, and should
+certainly be oftener in doubt how to act, if I had bothered my brains
+how to think in circumstances foreign to me. In such thinking, duty is
+of necessity a comparatively feeble factor, being only duty imagined,
+not live duty, and the result is the more questionable. The Lord
+instructed His apostles not to be anxious what they should say when they
+were brought before rulers and kings: I will leave the question of duty
+alone until action is demanded of me. In the meantime I will do the duty
+now required of me, which is the only preparation for the duty that is
+to come."
+
+Although Alexa had not begun to understand Andrew, she had sense enough
+and righteousness enough to feel that he was somehow ahead of her, and
+that it was not likely he and George Crawford would be of one mind in
+the matter that occupied her, so different were their ways of looking at
+things--so different indeed the things themselves they thought worth
+looking at.
+
+She was silent for a moment, then said:
+
+"You can at least tell me what you think of gambling!"
+
+"I think it is the meanest mode of gaining or losing money a man could
+find."
+
+"Why do you think so?"
+
+"Because he desires only to gain, and can gain only by his neighbor's
+loss. One of the two must be the worse for his transaction with the
+other. Each _must_ wish ill to his neighbor!"
+
+"But the risk was agreed upon between them."
+
+"True--but in what hope? Was it not, on the part of each, that he would
+be the gainer and the other the loser? There is no common cause, nothing
+but pure opposition of interest."
+
+"Are there not many things in which one must gain and the other lose?"
+
+"There are many things in which one gains and the other loses; but if it
+is essential to any transaction that only one side shall gain, the thing
+is not of God."
+
+"What do you think of trading in stocks?"
+
+"I do not know enough about it to have a right to speak."
+
+"You can give your impression!"
+
+"I will not give what I do not value."
+
+"Suppose, then, you heard of a man who had made his money so, how would
+you behave to him?"
+
+"I would not seek his acquaintance."
+
+"If he sought yours?"
+
+"It would be time to ask how he had made his money. Then it would be my
+business."
+
+"What would make it your business?"
+
+"That he sought my acquaintance. It would then be necessary to know
+something about him, and the readiest question would be--how he had made
+his money!"
+
+Alexa was silent for some time.
+
+"Do you think God cares about everything?" she said at length.
+
+"Everything," answered Andrew, and she said no more.
+
+Andrew avoided the discussion of moral questions. He regarded the thing
+as _vermiculate_, and ready to corrupt the obedience. "When you have a
+thing to do," he would say, "you will do it right in proportion to your
+love of right. But do the right, and you will love the right; for by
+doing it you will see it in a measure as it is, and no one can see the
+truth as it is without loving it. The more you _talk_ about what is
+right, or even about the doing of it, the more you are in danger of
+exemplifying how loosely theory may be allied to practice. Talk without
+action saps the very will. Something you have to do is waiting undone
+all the time, and getting more and more undone. The only refuge is _to
+do_." To know the thing he ought to do was a matter of import, to do the
+thing he knew he ought to do was a matter of life and death to Andrew.
+He never allowed even a cognate question to force itself upon him until
+he had attended to the thing that demanded doing: it was merest common
+sense!
+
+Alexa had in a manner got over her uneasiness at the report of how
+George was making his money, and their correspondence was not
+interrupted. But something, perhaps a movement from the world of spirit
+coming like the wind, had given her one of those motions to betterment,
+which, however occasioned, are the throb of the divine pulse in our
+life, the call of the Father, the pull of home, and the guide thither to
+such as will obey them. She had in consequence again become doubtful
+about Crawford, and as to whether she was right in corresponding with
+him. This led to her talk with Andrew, which, while it made her think
+less of his intellect, influenced her in a way she neither understood
+nor even recognized. There are two ways in which one nature may
+influence another for betterment--the one by strengthening the will, the
+other by heightening the ideal. Andrew, without even her suspicion of
+the fact, wrought in the latter way upon Alexa. She grew more uneasy.
+George was coming home: how was she to receive him? Nowise bound, they
+were on terms of intimacy: was she to encourage the procession of that
+intimacy, or to ward attempt at nearer approach?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+GEORGE AND ANDREW.
+
+George returned, and made an early appearance at Potlurg. Dawtie met him
+in the court. She did not know him, but involuntarily shrunk from him.
+He frowned. There was a natural repugnance between them; the one was
+simple, the other double; the one was pure, the other selfish; the one
+loved her neighbor, the other preyed upon his.
+
+George was a little louder, and his manners were more studied. Alexa
+felt him overblown. He was floridly at his ease. What little
+"atmosphere" there had been about him was gone, and its place taken by a
+colored fog. His dress was unobjectionable, and yet attracted notice;
+perhaps it was only too considered. Alexa was disappointed, and a little
+relieved. He looked older, yet not more manly--and rather fat. He had
+more of the confidence women dislike to see a man without, than was
+quite pleasant even to the confident Alexa. His speech was not a little
+infected with the nasality--as easy to catch as hard to get rid
+of--which I presume the Puritans carried from England to America. On the
+whole, George was less interesting than Alexa had expected.
+
+He came to her as if he would embrace her, but an instinctive movement
+on her part sufficed to check him. She threw an additional heartiness
+into her welcome, and kept him at arm's-length. She felt as if she had
+lost an old friend, and not gained a new one. He made himself very
+agreeable, but that he made himself so, made him less so.
+
+There was more than these changes at work in her; there was still the
+underlying doubt concerning him. Although not yet a live soul, she had
+strong if vague ideas about right and wrong; and although she sought
+many things a good deal more than righteousness, I do not see what
+temptation would at once have turned her from its known paths. At the
+same time I do not see what she had yet, more than hundreds of thousands
+of well-meaning women, to secure her from slow decay and final ruin.
+
+They laughed and talked together very _like_ the way they used, but
+"every like is not the same," and they knew there was a difference.
+George was stung by the sense of it--too much to show that he was vexed.
+He laid himself out to be the more pleasing, as if determined to make
+her feel what he was worth--as the man, namely, whom he imagined
+himself, and valued himself on being.
+
+It is an argument for God, to see what fools those make of themselves
+who, believing there is a God, do not believe _in_ Him--children who do
+not know the Father. Such make up the mass of church and chapel goers.
+Let an earthquake or the small-pox break loose among them, and they will
+show what sort their religion is. George had got rid of the folly of
+believing in the existence of a God, either interested in human affairs
+or careless of them, and naturally found himself more comfortable in
+consequence; for he never had believed _in_ God, and it is awkward to
+believe and not believe at the same moment. What he had called his
+_beliefs_ were as worthy of the name as those of most people, but
+whether he was better or worse without them hardly interests me, and my
+philanthropy will scarce serve to make me glad that he was more
+comfortable.
+
+As they talked, old times came up, and they drew a little nearer, until
+at last a gentle spring of rose-colored interest began a feeble flow in
+Alexa's mind. When George took his leave, which he did soon, with the
+wisdom of one who feared to bore, she went with him to the court, where
+the gardener was holding his horse. Beside them stood Andrew, talking to
+the old man, and admiring the beautiful animal in his charge.
+
+"The life of the Creator has run free through every channel up to this
+creature!" he was saying as they came near.
+
+"What rot!" said George to himself, but to Alexa he said: "Here's my old
+friend, the farmer, I declare!" then to Andrew: "How do you do, Mr.
+Ingram?"
+
+George never forgot a man's name, and went in consequence for a better
+fellow than he was. One may remember for reasons that have little to do
+with good-fellowship. He spoke as if they were old friends. "You seem to
+like the look of the beast!" he said: "you ought to know what's what in
+horses!"
+
+"He is one of the finest horses I ever saw," answered Andrew. "The man
+who owns him is fortunate."
+
+"He ought to be a good one!" said George. "I gave a hundred and fifty
+guineas for him yesterday."
+
+Andrew could not help vaguely reflecting what kind of money had bought
+him, if Sandy was right.
+
+Alexa was pleased to see Andrew. He made her feel more comfortable. His
+presence seemed to protect her a little.
+
+"May I ask you, Mr. Ingram," she said, "to repeat what you were saying
+about the horse as we came up?"
+
+"I was saying," answered Andrew, "that, to any one who understands a
+horse it is clear that the power of God must have flowed unobstructed
+through many generations to fashion such a perfection."
+
+"Oh! you indorse the development theory--do you?" said George. "I should
+hardly have expected that of you."
+
+"I do not think it has anything to do with what I said; no one disputes
+that this horse comes of many generations of horses. The development
+theory, if I understand aright, concerns itself with how his first
+ancestor in his own kind came to be a horse."
+
+"And about that there can be no doubt in the mind of any one who
+believes in the Bible!" said George.
+
+"God makes beautiful horses," returned Andrew; "whether He takes the one
+way or the other to make them, I am sure He takes the right way."
+
+"You imply it is of little consequence what you believe about it."
+
+"If I had to make them it would be of consequence. But what I think of
+consequence to us is--that He makes them, not out of nothing, but out of
+Himself. Why should my poor notion of God's _how_ be of importance, so
+long as, when I see a horse like yours, Mr. Crawford, I say, God be
+praised? It is of eternal importance to love the animal, and see in him
+the beauty of the Lord; it is of none to fancy I know which way God took
+to make him. Not having in me the power or the stuff to make a horse, I
+can not know how God made the horse; I can know him to be beautiful."
+
+"But," said George, "the first horse was a very common-looking domestic
+animal, which they kept to eat--nothing like this one."
+
+"Then you think God made the first horse, and after that the horses made
+themselves," said Andrew.
+
+Alexa laughed; George said nothing; Andrew went on.
+
+"But," he said, "if we have come up from the lower animals, through a
+million of kinds, perhaps--against which theory I have nothing to
+urge--then I am more than prepared to believe that the man who does not
+do the part of a man will have to go down again, through all the stages
+of his being, to a position beyond the lowest forms of the powers he has
+misused, and there begin to rise once more, haunted perhaps with dim
+hints of the world of humanity left so far above him."
+
+"Bah! What's the use of bothering! Rubbish!" cried George, with rude
+jollity. "You know as well as I do, Mr. Ingram, it's all bosh! Things
+will go on as they're doing, and as they have been doing, till now from
+all eternity--so far as we know, and that's enough for us."
+
+"They will not go on so for long in our sight, Mr. Crawford. The worms
+will have a word to say with us."
+
+Alexa turned away.
+
+"You've not given up preaching and taken to the practical yet, Mr.
+Ingram, I see," said George.
+
+Andrew laughed.
+
+"I flatter myself I have not ceased to be practical, Mr. Crawford. You
+are busy with what you see, and I am busy as well with what I don't see;
+but all the time I believe my farm is in as good a state as your books."
+
+George gave a start, and stole a look at the young farmer, but was
+satisfied he "meant nothing." The self-seeker will walk into the very
+abyss protesting himself a practical man, and counting him unpractical
+who will not with him "jump the life to come." Himself, he neither
+measures the width nor questions his muscle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+WHAT IS IT WORTH?
+
+Andrew, with all his hard work, harder since Sandy went, continued able
+to write, for he neither sought company nor drank strong drink, and was
+the sport of no passion. From threatened inroad he appealed to Him who
+created to lift His child above the torrent, and make impulse the slave
+of conscience and manhood. There were no demons riding the whirlwinds of
+his soul. It is not wonderful then that he should be able to write a
+book, or that the book should be of genuine and original worth. It had
+the fortune to be "favorably" reviewed, scarce one of those who reviewed
+it understanding it, while all of them seemed to themselves to
+understand it perfectly. I mention the thing because, had the book not
+been thus reviewed, Alexa would not have bought a copy, or been able to
+admire it.
+
+The review she read was in a paper whose editor would not have admitted
+it had he suspected the drift which the reviewer had failed to see; and
+the passages quoted appealed to Alexa in virtue, partly, of her not
+seeing half they involved, or anything whatever of the said drift. But
+because he had got a book published, and because she approved of certain
+lines, phrases and passages in it; but chiefly because it had been
+praised by more than one influential paper, Andrew rose immensely in
+Alexa's opinion. Although he was the son of a tenant, was even a laborer
+on his farm, and had covered a birth no higher than that of Jesus Christ
+with the gown of no university, she began, against her own sense of what
+was fit, to look up to the plow-man. The plow-man was not aware of this,
+and would have been careless had he been. He respected his landlord's
+daughter, not ever questioned her superiority as a lady where he made no
+claim to being a gentleman, but he recognized in her no power either to
+help or to hurt.
+
+When they next met, Alexa was no longer indifferent to his presence, and
+even made a movement in the direction of being agreeable to him. She
+dropped in a measure, without knowing she had ever used it, her
+patronizing carriage, but had the assurance to compliment him not merely
+on the poem he had written, but on the way it had been received; she
+could not have credited, had he told her, that he was as indifferent to
+the praise or blame of what is called the public, as if that public were
+indeed--what it is most like--a boy just learning to read. Yet it is the
+consent of such a public that makes the very essence of what is called
+fame. How should a man care for it who knows that he is on his way to
+join his peers, to be a child with the great ones of the earth, the
+lovers of the truth, the Doers of the Will. What to him will be the wind
+of the world he has left behind, a wind that can not arouse the dead,
+that can only blow about the grave-clothes of the dead as they bury
+their dead.
+
+"Live, Dawtie," said Andrew to the girl, "and ane day ye'll hae yer
+hert's desire; for 'Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after
+righteousness.'"
+
+Andrew was neither annoyed nor gratified with the compliments Alexa paid
+him, for she did not know the informing power of the book--what he cared
+for in it--the thing that made him write it. But her gentleness and
+kindness did please him; he was glad to feel a little at home with her,
+glad to draw a little nearer to one who had never been other than good
+to him. And then was she not more than kind, even loving to Dawtie?
+
+"So, Andrew, you are a poet at last," she said, holding out her hand to
+him, which Andrew received in a palm that wrote the better verse that it
+was horny. "Please to remember I was the first that found you out!" she
+added.
+
+"I think it was my mother," answered Andrew.
+
+"And I would have helped you if you would have let me."
+
+"It is not well, ma'am, to push the bird off because he can't sit safe
+on the edge of the nest."
+
+"Perhaps you are right A failure then would have stood in the way of
+your coming fame."
+
+"Oh, for that, ma'am, believe me, I do not care a short straw."
+
+"What do you not care for?"
+
+"For fame."
+
+"That is wrong, Andrew. We ought to care what our neighbors think of
+us."
+
+"My neighbors did not set me to do the work, and I did not seek their
+praise in doing it. Their friendship I prize dearly--more than tongue
+can tell."
+
+"You can not surely be so conceited, Andrew, as to think nobody capable
+of judging your work."
+
+"Far from it, ma'am. But you were speaking of fame, and that does not
+come from any wise judgment."
+
+"Then what do you write for, if you care nothing for fame? I thought
+that was what all poets wrote for."
+
+"So the world thinks; and those that do sometimes have their reward."
+
+"Tell me then what you write for?"
+
+"I write because I want to tell something that makes me glad and strong.
+I want to say it, and so try to say it. Things come to me in gleams and
+flashes, sometimes in words themselves, and I want to weave them into a
+melodious, harmonious whole. I was once at an oratorio, and that taught
+me the shape of a poem. In a pause of the music, I seemed all at once to
+see Handel's heavy countenance looking out of his great wig, as he sat
+putting together his notes, ordering about in his mind, and fixing in
+their places with his pen, his drums, and pipes, and fiddles, and
+roaring bass, and flageolets, and hautboys--all to open the door for the
+thing that was plaguing him with the confusion of its beauty. For I
+suppose even Handel did not hear it all clear and plain at first, but
+had to build his orchestra into a mental organ for his mind to let
+itself out by, through the many music holes, lest it should burst with
+its repressed harmonic delights. He must have felt an agonized need to
+set the haunting angels of sound in obedient order and range, responsive
+to the soul of the thing, its one ruling idea! I saw him with his white
+rapt face, looking like a prophet of the living God sent to speak out of
+the heart of the mystery of truth! I saw him as he sat staring at the
+paper before him, scratched all over as with the fury of a holy anger at
+his own impotence, and his soul communed with heavenliest harmonies!
+Ma'am, will any man persuade me that Handel at such a moment was athirst
+for fame? or that the desire to please a house full or world full of
+such as heard his oratorios, gave him the power to write his music? No,
+ma'am! he was filled, not with the longing for sympathy, and not even
+with the good desire to give delight, but with the music itself. It was
+crying in him to get out, and he heard it crying, and could not rest
+till he had let it out; and every note that dropped from his pen was a
+chip struck from the granite wall between the song-birds in their
+prison-nest, and the air of their liberty. Creation is God's
+self-wrought freedom. No, ma'am, I do not despise my fellows, but
+neither do I prize the judgment of more than a few of them. I prize and
+love themselves, but not their opinion."
+
+Alexa was silent, and Andrew took his leave. She sat still for awhile
+thinking. If she did not understand, at least she remembered Andrew's
+face as he talked: could presumption make his face shine so? could
+presumption make him so forget himself?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+THE GAMBLER AND THE COLLECTOR.
+
+Things went swimmingly with George. He had weathered a crisis, and was
+now full of confidence, as well as the show of it. That he held himself
+a man who could do what he pleased, was plain to every one. His
+prosperity leaned upon that of certain princes of the power of money in
+America: gleaning after them he found his fortune.
+
+But he did not find much increase of favor with Alexa. Her spiritual
+tastes were growing more refined. There was something about the man, and
+that not new, which she could no longer contemplate without
+dissatisfaction. It cost her tears at night to think that, although her
+lover had degenerated, he had remained true to her, for she saw plainly
+that it was only lack of encouragement that prevented him from asking
+her to be his wife. She must _appear_ changeable, but this was not the
+man she had been ready to love! the plant had put forth a flower that
+was not in sequence with the leaf. The cause of his appearing different
+might lie in herself, but in any case he was not the gentleman she had
+thought! Had she loved him, she would have stood by him bravely, but now
+she could not help recalling the disgrace of the father, and shrunk from
+sharing it with the son. Would it be any wonder if the son himself
+proved less than honorable? She would have broken with him quite but for
+one thing: he had become intimate with her father, and the laird enjoyed
+his company.
+
+George had a large straggling acquaintance with things, and could
+readily appear to know more than he did. He was, besides, that most
+agreeable person to a man with a hobby, a good listener--when he saw
+reason. He made himself so pleasant that the laird was not only always
+glad to see him, but would often ask him to stay to supper, when he
+would fish up from the wine-cellar he had inherited a bottle with a
+history and a character, and the two would pass the evening together,
+Alexa trying not to wish him away, for was not her poor old father happy
+with him! Though without much pleasure of his own in such things,
+George, moved by the reflection of the laird's interest, even began to
+_collect_ a little, mainly in the hope of picking up what might gratify
+the laird; nor, if he came upon a thing he _must_ covet, would hesitate
+to spend on it a good sum. Naturally the old man grew to regard him as a
+son of the best sort, one who would do anything to please his father and
+indulge his tastes.
+
+It may seem surprising that such a man as George should have remained so
+true; but he had a bull-dog tenacity of purpose, as indeed his
+money-making indicated. Then there was good in him to the measure of
+admiring a woman like Alexa, though not of admiring a far better. He saw
+himself in danger of losing her; concluded influences at work to the
+frustration of his own; surmised that she doubted the character of his
+business; feared the clownish farmer-poet might have dazzled with his
+new reputation her womanly judgment; and felt himself called upon to
+make good his position against any and every prejudice she might have
+conceived against him! He would yield nothing! If he was foiled he was
+foiled, but it should not be his fault! His own phrase was, that he
+would not throw up the sponge so long as he could come up grinning. He
+had occasional twinges of discomfort, for his conscience, although
+seared indeed, was not seared as with the hottest iron, seeing he had
+never looked straight at any truth: it would ease those twinges, he
+vaguely imagined, so to satisfy a good woman like Alexa, that she made
+common cause with him, accepting not merely himself, but the money of
+which he had at such times a slight loathing. Then Alexa was
+handsome--he thought her _very_ handsome, and, true to Mammon, he would
+gladly be true also to something better. There _might be_ another camp,
+and it would be well to have friends in that too!
+
+So unlike Andrew, how could he but dislike him! and his dislike jealousy
+fostered into hatred. Cowed before him, like Macbeth before Banquo,
+because he was an honest man, how could he but hate him! He called him,
+and thought him a canting, sneaking fellow--which he was, if canting
+consist in giving God His own, and sneaking consist in fearing no
+man--in fearing nothing, indeed, but doing wrong. How could George
+consent even to the far-off existence of such a man!
+
+The laird also had taken a dislike to him.
+
+From the night when Dawtie made her appeal, he had not known an hour's
+peace. It was not that it had waked his conscience, though it had made
+it sleep a little less soundly; it was only that he feared she might
+take further action in regard to the cup. She seemed to him to be taking
+part with the owner of the cup against him; he could not see that she
+was taking part with himself against the devil; that it was not the cup
+she was anxious about, but the life of her master. What if she should
+acquaint the earl's lawyer with all she knew! He would be dragged into
+public daylight! He could not pretend ignorance concerning the identity
+of the chalice! that would be to be no antiquarian, while Dawtie would
+bear witness that he had in his possession a book telling all about it!
+But the girl would never of herself have turned against him! It was all
+that fellow Ingram, with his overstrained and absurd notions as to what
+God required of His poor sinful creatures! He did not believe in the
+atonement! He did not believe that Christ had given satisfaction to the
+Father for our sins! He demanded in the name of religion more than any
+properly educated and authorized minister would! and in his
+meddlesomeness had worried Dawtie into doing as she did! The girl was a
+good and modest girl, and would never of herself have so acted! Andrew
+was righteous overmuch, therefore eaten up with self-conceit, and the
+notion of pleasing God more than other men! He cherished old grudges
+against him, and would be delighted to bring his old school-master to
+shame! He was not a bad boy at school; he had always liked him; the
+change in him witnessed to the peril of extremes! Here they had led to
+spiritual pride, which was the worst of all the sins! The favorite of
+heaven could have no respect for the opinion of his betters! The man was
+bent on returning evil for all the good he had done the boy! It was a
+happy thing young Crawford understood him! He would be his friend, and
+defeat the machinations of his enemy! If only the fellow's lease were
+out, that he might get rid of him!
+
+Moved by George's sympathy with his tastes, he drew nearer and nearer to
+disclosing the possession which was the pride of his life. The
+enjoyment, of connoisseur or collector rests much on the glory of
+possession--of having what another has not, or, better still, what no
+other can possibly have.
+
+From what he had long ago seen on the night of the storm, and now from
+the way the old man hinted, and talked, and broke off; also from the
+uneasiness he sometimes manifested, George had guessed that there was
+something over whose possession he gloated, but for whose presence among
+his treasures he could not comfortably account He therefore set himself,
+without asking a single question, to make the laird unbosom. A hold on
+the father would be a hold on the daughter!
+
+One day, in a pawnbroker's shop, he lighted upon a rarity indeed, which
+might or might not have a history attributed to it, but was in itself
+more than interesting for the beauty of both material and workmanship.
+The sum asked for it was large, but with the chance of pleasing the
+laird, it seemed to George but a trifle. It was also, he judged, of
+intrinsic value to a great part of the price. Had he been then aware of
+the passion of the old man for jewels in especial, he would have been
+yet more eager to secure it for him. It was a watch, not very small, and
+by no means thin--a repeater, whose bell was dulled by the stones of the
+mine in which it lay buried. The case was one mass of gems of
+considerable size, and of every color. Ruby, sapphire, and emerald were
+judiciously parted by diamonds of utmost purity, while yellow diamonds
+took the golden place for which the topaz had not been counted of
+sufficient value. They were all crusted together as close as they could
+lie, the setting of them hardly showing. The face was of fine opals,
+across which moved the two larger hands radiant with rubies, while the
+second-hand flitted flashing around, covered with tiny diamonds. The
+numerals were in sapphires, within a bordering ring of emeralds and
+black pearls. The jewel was a splendor of color and light.
+
+George, without preface, took it from his pocket, held it a moment in
+the sunlight, and handed it to the laird. He glowered at it. He saw an
+angel from heaven in a thing compact of earth-chips! As near as any
+_thing_ can be loved of a live soul, the laird loved a fine stone; what
+in it he loved most, the color, the light, the shape, the value, the
+mystery, he could not have told!--and here was a jewel of many fine
+stones! With both hands he pressed it to his bosom. Then he looked at it
+in the sun, then went into the shadow of the house, for they were in the
+open air, and looked at it again. Suddenly he thrust it into his pocket,
+and hurried, followed by George, to his study. There he closed the
+shutters, lighted a lamp, and gazed at the marvel, turning it in all
+directions. At length he laid it on the table, and sunk with a sigh into
+a chair. George understood the sigh, and dug its source deeper by
+telling him, as he had heard it, the story of the jewel.
+
+"It may be true," he said as he ended. "I remember seeing some time ago
+a description of the toy. I think I could lay my hand on it!"
+
+"Would you mind leaving it with me till you come again?" faltered the
+laird.
+
+He knew he could not buy it: he had not the money; but he would gladly
+dally with the notion of being its possessor. To part with it, the
+moment after having held it in his hand and gloated over it for the
+first time, would be too keen a pain! It was unreasonable to have to
+part with it at all! He _ought_ to be its owner! Who could be such an
+owner to a thing like that as he! It was a wrong to him that it was not
+his! Next to his cup, it was the most precious thing he had ever wished
+to possess!--a thing for a man to take to the grave with him! Was there
+no way of carrying _any_ treasure to the other world? He would have sold
+of his land to secure the miracle, but, alas, it was all entailed! For a
+moment the Cellini chalice seemed of less account, and he felt ready to
+throw open the window of his treasure-room and pitch everything out. The
+demon of _having_ is as imperious and as capricious as that of drink,
+and there is no refuge from it but with the Father. "This kind goeth not
+out by prayer."
+
+The poor slave uttered, not a sigh now, but a groan. "You'll tell the
+man," he said, thinking George had borrowed the thing to show him, "that
+I did not even ask the price: I know I can not buy it!"
+
+"Perhaps he would give you credit!" suggested George, with a smile.
+
+"No! I will have nothing to do with credit! I should not be able to call
+it my own!"--Money-honesty was strong in the laird. "But," he continued,
+"do try and persuade him to let me have it for a day or two--that I may
+get its beauty by heart, and think of it all the days, and dream of it
+all the nights of my life after!"
+
+"There will be no difficulty about that," answered George. "The owner
+will be delighted to let you keep it as long as you wish!"
+
+"I would it were so!"
+
+"It is so!"
+
+"You don't mean to say, George, that that queen of jewels is yours, and
+you will lend it me?"
+
+"The thing is mine, but I will not lend it--not even to you, sir!"
+
+"I don't wonder!--I don't wonder! But it is a great disappointment! I
+was beginning to hope I--I--might have the loan of it for a week or two
+even!"
+
+"You should indeed if the thing were mine!" said George, playing him;
+"but--"
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon! I thought you said it was yours!"
+
+"So it was when I brought it, but it is mine no longer. It is yours. I
+purchased it for you this morning."
+
+The old man was speechless. He rose, and seizing George by both hands,
+stood staring at him. Something very like tears gathered within the
+reddened rims of his eyes. He had grown paler and feebler of late, ever
+in vain devising to secure possession of the cup--possession moral as
+well as legal. But this entrancing gift brought with it strength and
+hope in regard to the chalice! "To him that hath shall be given!" quoted
+the Mammon within him.
+
+"George!" he said, with a moan of ecstasy, "you are my good angel!" and
+sat down exhausted. The watch was the key to his "closet," as he
+persisted in calling his treasury.
+
+In old times not a few houses in Scotland held a certain tiny room,
+built for the head of the family, to be his closet for prayer: it was, I
+believe, with the notion of such a room in his head, that the laird had
+called his museum his closet; and he was more right than he meant to be;
+for in that chamber he did his truest worship--truest as to the love in
+it, falsest as to its object; for there he worshiped the god vilest bred
+of all the gods, bred namely of man's distrust in the Life of the
+universe.
+
+And now here also were two met together to worship; for from this time
+the laird, disclosing his secret, made George free of his sanctuary.
+
+George was by this time able to take a genuine interest in the
+collection. But he was much amused, sometimes annoyed, with the behavior
+of the laird in his closet: he was more nervous and touchy over his
+things than a she-bear over her cubs.
+
+Of all dangers to his darlings he thought a woman the worst, and had
+therefore seized with avidity the chance of making that room a hidden
+one, the possibility of which he had spied almost the moment he first
+entered it.
+
+He became, if possible, fonder of his things than ever, and flattered
+himself he had found in George a fellow-worshiper: George's exaggerated
+or pretended appreciation enhanced his sense of their value.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+ON THE MOOR.
+
+Alexa had a strong shaggy pony, which she rode the oftener that George
+came so often; taking care to be well gone before he arrived on his
+beautiful horse.
+
+One lovely summer evening she had been across the moor a long way, and
+was returning as the sun went down. A glory of red molten gold was
+shining in her face, so that she could see nothing in front of her, and
+was a little startled by a voice greeting her with a respectful
+good-evening. The same moment she was alongside of the speaker in the
+blinding veil of the sun. It was Andrew walking home from a village on
+the other side of the moor. She drew rein, and they went together.
+
+"What has come to you, Mr. Ingram?" she said; "I hear you were at church
+last Sunday evening!"
+
+"Why should I not be, ma'am?" asked Andrew.
+
+"For the reason that you are not in the way of going."
+
+"There might be good reason for going once, or for going many times, and
+yet not for going always!"
+
+"We won't begin with quarreling! There are things we shall not agree
+about!"
+
+"Yes; one or two--for a time, I believe!" returned Andrew.
+
+"What did you think of Mr. Rackstraw's sermon? I suppose you went to
+hear _him_.'"
+
+"Yes, ma'am--at least partly."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Will you tell me first whether you were satisfied with Mr. Rackstraw's
+teaching? I know you were there."
+
+"I was quite satisfied."
+
+"Then I don't see reason for saying anything about it."
+
+"If I am wrong, you ought to try to set me right!"
+
+"The prophet Elisha would have done no good by throwing his salt into
+the running stream. He cast it, you will remember, into the spring!"
+
+"I do not understand you."
+
+"There is no use in persuading a person to change an opinion."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because the man is neither the better nor the worse for it. If you had
+told me you were distressed to hear a man in authority speak as Mr.
+Rackstraw spoke concerning a being you loved, I would have tried to
+comfort you by pointing out how false it was. But if you are content to
+hear God so represented, why should I seek to convince you of what is
+valueless to you? Why offer you to drink what your heart is not
+thirsting after? Would you love God more because you found He was not
+what you were quite satisfied He should be?"
+
+"Do tell me more plainly what you mean?"
+
+"You must excuse me. I have said all I will. I can not reason in defense
+of God. It seems blasphemy to argue that His nature is not such as no
+honorable man could love in another man."
+
+"But if the Bible says so?"
+
+"If the Bible said so, the Bible would be false. But the Bible does not
+say so."
+
+"How is it then that it seems to say so?"
+
+"Because you were taught falsely about Him before you desired to know
+Him."
+
+"But I am capable of judging now!"
+
+Andrew was silent.
+
+"Am I not?" insisted Alexa.
+
+"Do you desire to know God?" said Andrew.
+
+"I think I do know Him."
+
+"And you think those things true?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then we are where we were, and I say no more."
+
+"You are not polite."
+
+"I can not help it. I must let you alone to believe about God what you
+can. You will not be blamed for not believing what you can not."
+
+"Do you mean that God never punishes any one for what He can not help?"
+
+"Assuredly."
+
+"How do you prove that?"
+
+"I will not attempt to prove it. If you are content to think He does, if
+it do not trouble you that your God should be unjust, go on thinking so
+until you are made miserable by it, then I will pour out my heart to
+deliver you."
+
+She was struck, not with any truth in what he said, but with the evident
+truthfulness of the man himself. Right or wrong, there was that about
+him--a certain radiance of conviction--which certainly was not about Mr.
+Rackstraw.
+
+"The things that can be shaken," said Andrew, as if thinking with
+himself, "may last for a time, but they will at length be shaken to
+pieces, that the things which can not be shaken may show what they are.
+Whatever we call religion will vanish when we see God face to face."
+
+For awhile they went brushing through the heather in silence.
+
+"May I ask you one question, Mr. Ingram?" said Alexa.
+
+"Surely, ma'am! Ask me anything you like."
+
+"And you will answer me?"
+
+"If I am at liberty to answer you I will."
+
+"What do you mean by being at liberty? Are you under any vow?"
+
+"I am under the law of love. I am bound to do nothing to hurt. An answer
+that would do you no good I will not give."
+
+"How do you know what will or will not do me good?"
+
+"I must use what judgment I have."
+
+"Is it true, then, that you believe God gives you whatever you ask?"
+
+"I have never asked anything of Him that He did not give me."
+
+"Would you mind telling me anything you have asked of Him?"
+
+"I have never yet required to ask anything not included in the prayer,
+'Thy will be done.'"
+
+"That will be done without your praying for it."
+
+"Pardon me; I do not believe it will be done, to all eternity, without
+my praying for it. Where first am I accountable that His will should be
+done? Is it not in myself? How is His will to be done in me without my
+willing it? Does He not want me to love what He loves?--to be like
+Himself?--to do His will with the glad effort of my will?--in a word, to
+will what He wills? And when I find I can not, what am I to do but pray
+for help? I pray, and He helps me."
+
+"There is nothing strange in that!"
+
+"Surely not It seems to me the simplest common sense. It is my business,
+the business of every man, that God's will be done by his obedience to
+that will, the moment he knows it."
+
+"I fancy you are not so different from other people as you think
+yourself. But they say you want to die."
+
+"I want nothing but what God wants. I desire righteousness."
+
+"Then you accept the righteousness of Christ?"
+
+"Accept it! I long for it."
+
+"You know that it is not what I mean!"
+
+"I seek first the kingdom of God and God's righteousness."
+
+"You avoid my question. Do you accept the righteousness of Christ
+instead of your own?"
+
+"I have no righteousness of my own to put it instead of. The only
+righteousness there is is God's, and He will make me righteous like
+Himself. He is not content that His one Son only should be righteous; He
+wants all His children to be righteous as He is righteous. The thing is
+plain; I will not argue about it."
+
+"You do not believe in the atonement."
+
+"I believe in Jesus Christ. He is the atonement. What strength God has
+given me I will spend in knowing Him and doing what He tells me. To
+interpret His plans before we know Himself is to mistake both Him and
+His plans. I know this, that he has given His life for what multitudes
+who call themselves by His name would not rise from their seats to share
+in."
+
+"You think me incapable of understanding the gospel?"
+
+"I think if you did understand the gospel of Christ you would be
+incapable of believing the things about His Father that you say you do
+believe. But I will not say a word more. When you are able to see the
+truth, you will see it; and when you desire the truth you will be able."
+
+Alexa touched her pony with her whip. But by and by she pulled him up,
+and made him walk till Andrew overtook her.
+
+The sun was by this time far out of sight, the glow of the west was
+over, and twilight lay upon the world. Its ethereal dimness had sunk
+into her soul.
+
+"Does the gloaming make you sad, Mr. Ingram?" she asked.
+
+"It makes me very quiet," he answered--"as if all my people were asleep,
+and waiting for me."
+
+"Do you mean as if they were all dead? How can you talk of it so
+quietly?"
+
+"Because I do not believe in death."
+
+"What _do_ you mean?"
+
+"I am a Christian!"
+
+"I hope you are, Mr. Ingram, though, to be honest with you, some things
+make me doubt it Perhaps you would say I am not a Christian."
+
+"It is enough that God knows whether you are a Christian or not. Why
+should I say you are or you are not?"
+
+"But I want to know what you meant when you said you were a Christian.
+How should that make you indifferent to the death of your friends? Death
+is a dreadful thing, look at it how you like."
+
+"The Lord says, 'He that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.' If
+my friends are not dead, but living and waiting for me, why should I
+wait for them in a fierce, stormy night, or a black frost, instead of
+the calm of such a sleeping day as this--a day with the son hid,
+Shakespeare calls it."
+
+"How you do mix up things! Shakespeare and Jesus Christ!"
+
+"God mixed them first, and will mix them a good deal more yet," said
+Andrew.
+
+But for the smile which would hover like a heavenly Psyche about his
+mouth, his way of answering would sometimes have seemed curt to those
+who did not understand him. Instead of holding aloof in his superiority,
+however, as some thought he did when he would not answer, or answered
+abruptly, Andrew's soul would be hovering, watching and hoping for a
+chance of lighting, and giving of the best he had. He was like a great
+bird changing parts with a child--the child afraid of the bird, and the
+bird enticing the child to be friends. He had learned that if he poured
+out his treasure recklessly it might be received with dishonor, and but
+choke the way of the chariot of approaching truth.
+
+"Perhaps you will say next there is no such thing as suffering," resumed
+Alexa.
+
+"No; the Lord said that in the world His friends should have
+tribulation."
+
+"What tribulation have you, who are so specially His friend?"
+
+"Not much yet It is a little, however, sometimes, to know such strong,
+and beautiful, and happy-making things, and all the time my people, my
+beloved humans, born of my Father in heaven, with the same heart for joy
+and sorrow, will not listen and be comforted, I think that was what made
+our Lord sorriest of all."
+
+"Mr. Ingram, I have no patience with you. How dare you liken your
+trouble to that of our Lord--making yourself equal with Him!"
+
+"Is it making myself equal with Him to say that I understand a little
+how He felt toward His fellow-men? I am always trying to understand Him;
+would it be a wonder if I did sometimes a little? How is a man to do as
+He did, without understanding Him?"
+
+"Are you going to work miracles next?"
+
+"Jesus was always doing what God wanted Him to do. That was what He came
+for, not to work miracles. He could have worked a great many more if He
+had pleased, but He did no more than God wanted of Him. Am I not to try
+to do the will of God, because He who died that I might, always
+succeeded however hard it was, and I am always failing and having to try
+again?"
+
+"And you think you will come to it in this life?"
+
+"I never think about that; I only think about doing His will now--not
+about doing it then--that is, to-morrow or next day or next world. I
+know only one life--the life that is hid with Christ in God; and that is
+the life by which I live here and now. I do not make schemes of life; I
+live. Life will teach me God's plans; I will take no trouble about them;
+I will only obey, and receive the bliss He sends me. And of all things I
+will not make theories of God's plans for other people to accept. I will
+only do my best to destroy such theories as I find coming between some
+poor glooming heart, and the sun shining in his strength. Those who love
+the shade of lies, let them walk in it until the shiver of the eternal
+cold drive them to seek the face of Jesus Christ. To appeal to their
+intellect would be but to drive them the deeper into the shade to
+justify their being in it. And if by argument you did persuade them out
+of it, they would but run into a deeper and worse darkness."
+
+"How could that be?"
+
+"They would at once think that, by an intellectual stride they had
+advanced in the spiritual life, whereas they would be neither the better
+nor the worse. I know a man, once among the foremost in denouncing the
+old theology, who is now no better than a swindler."
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"No one you know, ma'am. His intellectual freedom seems only to have
+served his spiritual subjugation. Right opinion, except it spring from
+obedience to the truth, is but so much rubbish on the golden floor of
+the temple."
+
+The peace of the night and its luminous earnestness were gleaming on
+Andrew's face, and Alexa, glancing up as he ceased, felt again the
+inroad of a sense of something in the man that was not in the other men
+she knew--the spiritual shadow of a dweller in regions beyond her ken.
+The man was before her, yet out of her sight!
+
+The whole thing was too simple for her, only a child could understand it
+Instead of listening to the elders and priests to learn how to save his
+soul, he cast away all care of himself, left that to God, and gave
+himself to do the will of Him from whose heart he came, even as the
+eternal Life, the Son of God, required of him; in the mighty hope of
+becoming one mind, heart, soul, one eternal being, with Him, with the
+Father, with every good man, with the universe which was his
+inheritance--walking in the world as Enoch walked with God, held by his
+hand. This is what man was and is meant to be, what man must become;
+thither the wheels of time are roaring; thither work all the silent
+potencies of the eternal world; and they that will not awake and arise
+from the dead must be flung from their graves by the throes of a
+shivering world.
+
+When he had done speaking Andrew stood and looked up. A few stars were
+looking down through the limpid air. Alexa rode on. Andrew let her go,
+and walked after her alone, sure that her mind must one day open to the
+eternal fact that God is all in all, the perfect friend of His children;
+yea, that He would cease to be God sooner than fail His child in his
+battle with death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+THE WOOER.
+
+Alexa kept hoping that George would be satisfied she was not inclined
+toward him as she had been; and that, instead of bringing the matter to
+open issue, he would continue to come and go as the friend of her
+father. But George came to the conclusion that he ought to remain in
+doubt no longer, and one afternoon followed her into the garden. She had
+gone there with a certain half-scientific, half-religious book in her
+hand, from which she was storing her mind with arguments against what
+she supposed the opinions of Andrew. She had, however, little hope of
+his condescending to front them with counter-argument. His voice
+returned ever to the ear of her mind in words like these: "If you are
+content to think so, you are in no condition to receive what I have to
+communicate. Why should I press water on a soul that is not thirsty? Let
+us wait for the drought of the desert, when life is a low fever, and the
+heart is dry; when the earth is like iron, and the heavens above it are
+as brass."
+
+She started at the sound of George's voice.
+
+"What lovely weather!" he said.
+
+Even lovers betake themselves to the weather as a medium--the side of
+nature which all understand. It was a good, old-fashioned, hot, heavy
+summer afternoon, one ill-chosen for love-making.
+
+"Yes?" answered Alexa, with a point of interrogation subaudible, and
+held her book so that he might feel it on the point of being lifted
+again to eager eyes. But he was not more sensitive than sentimental.
+
+"Please put your book down for a moment. I have not of late asked too
+much of your attention, Alexa!"
+
+"You have been very kind, George!" she answered.
+
+"Kind is not asking much of your attention?"
+
+"Yea--that, and giving my father so much of yours."
+
+"I certainly have seen more of him than of you!" returned George, hoping
+her words meant reproach. "But he has always been kind to me, and
+pleased to see me! You have not given me much encouragement!"
+
+To begin love-making with complaint is not wise, and George felt that he
+had got into the wrong track; but Alexa took care that he should not get
+out of it easily. Not being simple, he always settled the best course to
+pursue, and often went wrong. The man who cares only for what is true
+and right is saved much thinking and planning. He generally sees but one
+way of doing a thing!
+
+"I am glad to hear you say so, George! You have not mistaken me!"
+
+"You were not so sharp with me when I went away, Alexa!"
+
+"No; then you were going away!"
+
+"Should you not show a fellow some kindness when he is come back?"
+
+"Not when he does not seem content with having come back!"
+
+"I do not understand!"
+
+But Alexa gave no explanation.
+
+"You would be kind to me again if I were going away again?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"That is, if you were sure I was not coming back."
+
+"I did not _say_ so."
+
+"I can't make it out, Alexa! I used to think there could never be any
+misunderstanding between you and me! But something has crept in between
+us, and for the life of me I do not know what it is!"
+
+"There is one thing for which I am more obliged to you than I can tell,
+George--that you did not say anything before you went."
+
+"I am awfully sorry for it now; but I thought you understood!"
+
+"I did; and I am very glad, for I should have repented it long ago!"
+
+This was hardly logical, but George seemed to understand.
+
+"You are cruel!" he said. "I should have made it the business of my life
+that you never did!"
+
+Yet George knew of things he dared not tell that had taken place almost
+as soon as he was relieved from the sustaining and restraining human
+pressure in which he had grown up!
+
+"I am certain I should," persisted Alexa.
+
+"Why are you so certain?"
+
+"Because I am so glad now to think I am free."
+
+"Some one has been maligning me, Alexa! It is very hard not to know
+where the stab comes from!"
+
+"The testimony against you is from your own lips, George. I heard you
+talking to my father, and was aware of a tone I did not like. I listened
+more attentively, and became convinced that your ways of thinking had
+deteriorated. There seemed not a remnant left of the honor I then
+thought characterized you!"
+
+"Why, certainly, as an honest man, I can not talk religion like your
+friend the farmer!"
+
+"Do you mean that Andrew Ingram is not an honest man?" rejoined Alexa,
+with some heat.
+
+"I mean that I am an honest man."
+
+"I am doubtful of you."
+
+"I can tell the quarter whence that doubt was blown!"
+
+"It would be of greater consequence to blow it away! George Crawford, do
+you believe yourself an honest man?"
+
+"As men go, yes."
+
+"But not as men go, George? As you would like to appear to the world
+when hearts are as open as faces?"
+
+He was silent.
+
+"Would the way you have made your money stand the scrutiny of--"
+
+She had Andrew in her mind, and was on the point of saying "_Jesus
+Christ_," but felt she had no right, and hesitated.
+
+"--Of our friend Andrew?" supplemented George, with a spiteful laugh.
+"The only honest mode of making money he knows is the strain of his
+muscles--the farmer-way! He wouldn't keep up his corn for a better
+market--not he!"
+
+"It so happens that I know he would not; for he and my father had a
+dispute on that very point, and I heard them. He said poor people were
+not to go hungry that he might get rich. He was not sent into the world
+to make money, he said, but to grow corn. The corn was grown, and he
+could get enough for it now to live by, and had no right, and no desire
+to get more--and would not keep it up! The land was God's, not his, and
+the poor were God's children, and had their rights from him! He was sent
+to grow corn for them!"
+
+"And what did your father say to that wisdom?"
+
+"That is no matter. Nor do I profess to understand Mr. Ingram. I only
+know," added Alexa, with a little laugh, "that he is consistent, for he
+has puzzled me all my life. I can, however, see a certain nobility in
+him that sets him apart from other men!"
+
+"And I can see that when I left I was needlessly modest! I thought _my_
+position too humble!"
+
+"What am I to understand by that?"
+
+"What you think I mean."
+
+"I wish you a good-afternoon, Mr. Crawford!"
+
+Alexa rose and left him.
+
+George had indeed grown coarser! He turned where he stood with his hands
+in his pockets, and looked after her; then smiled to himself a nasty
+smile, and said: "At least I have made her angry, and that's something!
+What has a fellow like that to give her? Poet, indeed! What's that! He's
+not even the rustic gentleman! He's downright vulgar!--a clod-hopper
+born and bred! But the lease, I understand, will soon be out, and
+Potlurg will never let _him_ have it! _I_ will see to that! The laird
+hates the canting scoundrel! I would rather pay him double the rent
+myself!"
+
+His behavior now did not put Andrew's manners in the shade! Though he
+never said a word to flatter Alexa, spoke often in a way she did not at
+all like, persistently refused to enter into argument with her when most
+she desired it, yet his every tone, every movement toward her was full
+of respect And however she strove against the idea, she felt him her
+superior, and had indeed begun to wish that she had never shown herself
+at a disadvantage by the assumption of superiority. It would be pleasant
+to know that it pained him to disapprove of her! For she began to feel
+that, as she disapproved of George, and could not like him, so the young
+farmer disapproved of her, and could not like her. It was a new and by
+no means agreeable thought. Andrew delighted in beautiful things: he did
+not see anything beautiful in her! Alexa was not conceited, but she knew
+she was handsome, and knew also that Andrew would never feel one
+heart-throb more because of any such beauty as hers. Had he not as good
+as told her she was one of the dead who would not come alive! It would
+be something to be loved by a man like that! But Alexa was too maidenly
+to think of making any man love her--and even if he loved her she could
+not marry a man in Andrew's position! She might stretch a point or two
+were the lack but a point or two, but there was no stretching points to
+the marrying of a peasant, without education, who worked on his father's
+farm! The thing was ridiculous!--of course she knew that!--the very idea
+too absurd to pass through her idlest thoughts! But she was not going to
+marry George! That was well settled! In a year or two he would be quite
+fat! And he always had his hands in his pockets! There was something
+about him _not_ like a gentleman! He suggested an auctioneer or a
+cheap-jack!
+
+She took her pony and went for a ride. When she came back, the pony
+looked elf-ridden.
+
+But George had no intention of forsaking the house--yet, at least. He
+was bent on humbling his cousin, therefore continued his relations with
+her father, while he hurried on, as fast as consisted with good masonry,
+the building of a house on a small estate he had bought in the
+neighborhood, intending it to be such as must be an enticement to any
+lady. So long had he regarded everything through the veil of money, that
+he could not think of Alexa even without thinking of Mammon as well. By
+this time also he was so much infected with the old man's passion for
+things curious and valuable, that the idea of one day calling the
+laird's wonderful collection his own, had a real part in his desire to
+become his daughter's husband. He _would not_ accept her dismissal as
+final!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+THE HEART OF THE HEART.
+
+The laird had been poorly for some weeks, and Alexa began to fear that
+he was failing. Nothing more had passed between him and Dawtie, but he
+knew that anxious eyes were often watching him, and the thought worried
+him not a little. If he would but take a start, thought Dawtie, and not
+lose all the good of this life! It was too late for him to rise very
+high; he could not now be a saint, but he might at least set a foot on
+the eternal stair that leads to the fullness of bliss! He would have a
+sore fight with all those imps of things, before he ceased to love that
+which was not lovely, and to covet that which was not good! But the man
+gained a precious benefit from this world, who but began to repent
+before he left it! If only the laird would start up the hill before his
+body got quite to the bottom! Was there any way to approach him again
+with her petition that he would be good to himself, good to God, good to
+the universe, that he would love what was worth loving, and cast away
+what was not? She had no light, and could do nothing!
+
+Suddenly the old man failed quite--apparently from no cause but
+weakness. The unease of his mind, the haunting of the dread thought of
+having to part with the chalice, had induced it. He was in his closet
+one night late into the morning, and the next day did not get up to
+breakfast He wanted a little rest, he said. In a day he would be well!
+But the hour to rise again, much anticipated, never came. He seemed very
+troubled at times, and very desirous of getting up, but never was able.
+It became necessary to sit with him at night. In fits of delirium he
+would make fierce endeavor to rise, insisting that he must go to his
+study. His closet he never mentioned: even in dreams was his secrecy
+dominant. Dawtie, who had her share in nursing him, kept hoping her
+opportunity would come. He did not seem to cherish any resentment
+against her. His illness would protect him, he thought, from further
+intrusion of her conscience upon his! She must know better than irritate
+a sick man with overofficiousness! Everybody could not be a saint! It
+was enough to be a Christian like other good and salvable Christians! It
+was enough for him if through the merits of his Saviour he gained
+admission to the heavenly kingdom at last! He never thought now, once
+in, he could bear to stay in; never thought how heaven could be to him
+other than the dullest place in the universe of God, more wearisome than
+the kingdom of darkness itself! And all the time the young woman with
+the savior-heart was watching by his bedside, ready to speak; but the
+Spirit gave her no utterance, and her silence soothed his fear of her.
+
+One night he was more restless than usual. Waking from his troubled
+slumber, he called her--in the tone of one who had something important
+to communicate.
+
+"Dawtie," he said, with feeble voice but glittering eye, "there is no
+one I can trust like you. I have been thinking of what you said that
+night ever since. Go to my closet and bring me the cup."
+
+Dawtie held a moment's debate whether it would be right; but she
+reflected that it made little difference whether the object of his
+passion was in his hand or in his chest, while it was all the same deep
+in his heart. Then his words seemed to imply that he wanted to take his
+farewell of it; and to refuse his request might only fan the evil love,
+and turn him from the good motion in his mind. She said: "Yes, sir," and
+stood waiting. He did not speak.
+
+"I do not know where to find it," she said.
+
+"I am going to tell you," he replied, but seemed to hesitate.
+
+"I will not touch a single thing beside," said Dawtie.
+
+He believed her, and at once proceeded:
+
+"Take my bunch of keys from the hook behind me. There is the key of the
+closet door!--and there, the key of all the bunch that looks the
+commonest, but is in reality the most cunningly devised, is the key of
+the cabinet in which I keep it!"
+
+Then he told her where, behind a little book-case, which moved from the
+wall on hinges, she would find the cabinet, and in what part of it the
+cup, wrapped in a piece of silk that had once been a sleeve, worn by
+_Mme. de Genlis_--which did not make Dawtie much wiser.
+
+She went, found the chalice, and brought it where the laird lay
+straining his ears, and waiting for it as a man at the point of death
+might await the sacramental cup from absolving priest.
+
+His hands trembled as he took it; for they were the hands of a
+lover--strange as that love was, which not merely looked for no return,
+but desired to give neither pleasure nor good to the thing loved! It was
+no love of the merely dead, but a love of the unliving! He pressed the
+thing to his bosom; then, as if rebuked by the presence of Dawtie, put
+it a little from him, and began to pore over every stone, every
+_repoussé_ figure between, and every engraved ornament around the gems,
+each of which he knew, by shape, order, quality of color, better than
+ever face of wife or child. But soon his hands sunk on the counterpane
+of silk patchwork, and he lay still, grasping tight the precious thing.
+
+He woke with a start and a cry, to find it safe in both his hands.
+
+"Ugh!" he said; "I thought some one had me by the throat! You didn't try
+to take the cup from me--did you, Dawtie?"
+
+"No, sir," answered Dawtie; "I would not care to take it out of your
+hand, but I _should_ be glad to take it out of your heart!"
+
+"If they would only bury it with me!" he murmured, heedless of her
+words.
+
+"Oh, sir! Would you have it burning your heart to all eternity? Give it
+up, sir, and take the treasure thief never stole."
+
+"Yes, Dawtie, yes! That is the true treasure!"
+
+"And to get it we must sell all that we have!"
+
+"He gives and withholds as He sees fit."
+
+"Then, when you go down into the blackness, longing for the cup you will
+never see more, you will complain of God that he would not give you
+strength to fling it from you?"
+
+He hugged the chalice.
+
+"Fling it from me!" he cried, fiercely. "Girl, who are you to torment me
+before my time!"
+
+"Tell me, sir," persisted Dawtie, "why does the apostle cry, 'Awake thou
+that sleepest!' if they couldn't move?"
+
+"No one _can_ move without God."
+
+"Therefore, seeing every one can move, it must be God giving him the
+power to do what he requires of him; and we are fearfully to blame not
+using the strength God gives us!"
+
+"I can not bear the strain of thinking!" gasped the laird.
+
+"Then give up thinking, and do the thing! Shall I take it for you?"
+
+She put out her hand as she spoke.
+
+"No! no!" he cried, grasping the cup tighter. "You shall not touch it!
+You would give it to the earl! I know you! Saints hate what is
+beautiful!"
+
+"I like better to look at things in my Father's hand than in my own!"
+
+"You want to see my cup--it _is_ my cup!--in the hands of that
+spendthrift fool, Lord Borland!"
+
+"It is in the Father's hand, whoever has it!"
+
+"Hold your tongue, Dawtie, or I will cry out and wake the house!"
+
+"They will think you out of your mind, and come and take the cup from
+you! Do let me put it away; then you will go to sleep."
+
+
+"I will not; I can not trust you with it! You have destroyed my
+confidence in you! I _may_ fall asleep, but if your hand come within a
+foot of the cup, it will wake me! I know it will! I shall sleep with my
+heart in the cup, and the least touch will wake me!"
+
+"I wish you would let Andrew Ingram come and see you, sir!"
+
+"What's the matter with _him?_"
+
+"Nothing's the matter with him, sir; but he helps everybody to do what
+is right."
+
+"Conceited rascal! Do you take me for a maniac that you talk such
+foolery?"
+
+His look was so wild, his old blue faded eyes gleamed with such a light
+of mingled fear and determination, that Dawtie was almost sorry she had
+spoken. With trembling hands he drew the cup within the bed-clothes, and
+lay still. If the morning would but come, and bring George Crawford!
+_He_ would restore the cup to its place, or hide it where he should know
+it safe and not far from him!
+
+Dawtie sat motionless, and the old man fell into another feverish doze.
+She dared not stir lest he should start away to defend his idol. She sat
+like an image, moving only her eyes.
+
+"What are you about, Dawtie?" he said at length. "You are after some
+mischief, you are so quiet!"
+
+"I was telling God how good you would be if he could get you to give up
+your odds and ends, and take Him instead."
+
+"How dared you say such a thing, sitting there by my side! Are _you_ to
+say to _Him_ that any sinner would be good, if He would only do so and
+so with him! Tremble, girl, at the vengeance of the Almighty!"
+
+"We are told to make prayers and intercessions for all men, and I was
+saying what I could for you." The laird was silent, and the rest of the
+night passed quietly.
+
+His first words in the morning were:
+
+"Go and tell your mistress I want her."
+
+When his daughter came, he told her to send for George Crawford. He was
+worse, he said, and wanted to see him.
+
+Alexa thought it best to send Dawtie with the message by the next train.
+Dawtie did not relish the mission, for she had no faith in Crawford, and
+did not like his influence on her master. Not the less when she reached
+his hotel, she insisted on seeing him and giving her message in person;
+which done, she made haste for the first train back: they could not do
+well without her! When she arrived, there was Mr. Crawford already on
+the platform! She set out as fast as she could, but she had not got
+further than half-way when he overtook her in a fly, and insisted she
+should get in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+GEORGE CRAWFORD AND DAWTIE.
+
+"What is the matter with your master?" he asked.
+
+"God knows, sir."
+
+"What is the use of telling me that? I want you to tell me what _you_
+know."
+
+"I don't know anything, sir."
+
+"What do you think then?"
+
+"I should think old age had something to do with it, sir."
+
+"Likely enough, but you know more than that!"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder, sir, if he were troubled in his mind."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"It is reasonable to think so, sir. He knows he must die before long,
+and it is dreadful to leave everything you care for, and go where there
+is nothing you care for!"
+
+"How do you know there is nothing he would care for?"
+
+"What is there, sir, he would be likely to care for?"
+
+"There is his wife. He was fond of her, I suppose, and you pious people
+fancy you will see each other again."
+
+"The thought of seeing her would give him little comfort, I am afraid,
+in parting with the things he has here. He believes a little somehow--I
+can't understand how."
+
+"What does he believe?"
+
+"He believes a little--he is not sure--that what a man soweth he shall
+also reap."
+
+"How do you know what he is or is not sure off? It can't be a matter of
+interest to you?"
+
+"Those that come of one Father must have interest in one another."
+
+"How am I to tell we come of one Father--as you call Him? I like to have
+a thing proved before I believe it. I know neither where I came from,
+nor where I am going; how then can I know that we come from the same
+father?"
+
+"I don't know how you're to know it, sir. I take it for granted, and
+find it good. But there is one thing I am sure of."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"That if you were my master's friend you would not rest till you got him
+to do what was right before he died."
+
+"I will not be father-confessor to any man. I have enough to do with
+myself. A good worthy old man like the laird must know better than any
+other what he ought to do."
+
+"There is no doubt of that, sir."
+
+"What do you want then?"
+
+"To get him to do it. That he knows, is what makes it so miserable. If
+he did not know he would not be to blame. He knows what it is and won't
+do it, and that makes him wretched--as it ought, thank God!"
+
+"You're a nice Christian. Thanking God for making a man miserable.
+Well."
+
+"Yes," answered Dawtie.
+
+George thought a little.
+
+"What would you have me persuade him to?" he asked, for he might hear
+something it would be useful to know. But Dawtie had no right and no
+inclination to tell him what she knew.
+
+"I only wish you would persuade him to do what he knows he ought to do,"
+she replied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+THE WATCH.
+
+George stayed with the laird a good while, and held a long, broken talk
+with him. When he went Alexa came. She thought her father seemed
+happier. George had put the cup away for him. Alexa sat with him that
+night. She knew nothing of such a precious thing being in the house--in
+the room with them.
+
+In the middle of the night, as she was arranging his pillows, the laird
+drew from under the bed-clothes, and held up to her, flashing in the
+light of the one candle, the jeweled watch. She stared. The old man was
+pleased at her surprise and evident admiration. She held out her hand
+for it. He gave it her.
+
+"That watch," he said, "is believed to have belonged to Ninon de
+l'Enclos. It _may_, but I doubt it myself. It is well known she never
+took presents from her admirers, and she was too poor to have bought
+such a thing. Mme. de Maintenon, however, or some one of her
+lady-friends, might have given it her. It will be yours one day--that
+is, if you marry the man I should like you to marry."
+
+"Dear father, do not talk of marrying. I have enough with you," cried
+Alexa, and felt as if she hated George.
+
+"Unfortunately, you can not have me always," returned her father. "I
+will say nothing more now, but I desire you to consider what I have
+said."
+
+Alexa put the watch in his hand.
+
+"I trust you do not suppose," she said, "that a house full of things
+like that would make any difference."
+
+He looked up at her sharply. A house full--what did she know? It
+silenced him, and he lay thinking. Surely the delight of lovely things
+must be in every woman's heart. Was not the passion, developed or
+undeveloped, universal? Could a child of his _not_ care for such things?
+
+"Ah," he said to himself, "she takes after her mother."
+
+A wall seemed to rise between him and his daughter. Alas! alas! the
+things he loved and must one day yield would not be cherished by her. No
+tender regard would hover around them when he was gone. She would be no
+protecting divinity to them. God in heaven! she might--she would--he was
+sure she would sell them.
+
+It seems the sole possible comfort of avarice, as it passes empty and
+hungry into the empty regions--that the things it can no more see with
+eyes or handle with hands will yet be together somewhere. Hence the rich
+leave to the rich, avoiding the man who most needs, or would best use
+their money. Is there a lurking notion in the man of much goods, I
+wonder, that, in the still watches of the night, when men sleep, he will
+return to look on what he leaves behind him? Does he forget the torture
+of seeing it at the command, in the enjoyment of another--his will
+concerning this thing or that but a mockery? Does he know that he who
+then holds them will not be able to conceive of their having been or
+ever being another's as now they are his?
+
+As Alexa sat in the dim light by her brooding father she loathed the
+shining thing he had again drawn under the bed-clothes--shrunk from it
+as from a manacle the devil had tried to slip on her wrist. The judicial
+assumption of society suddenly appeared in the emptiness of its
+arrogance. Marriage for the sake of _things_. Was she not a live soul,
+made for better than that She was ashamed of the innocent pleasure the
+glittering toy had given her.
+
+The laird cast now and then a glance at her face, and sighed. He
+gathered from it the conviction that she would be a cruel step-mother to
+his children, her mercy that of a loveless non-collector. It should not
+be. He would do better for them than that. He loved his daughter, but
+needed not therefore sacrifice his last hopes where the sacrifice would
+meet with no acceptance. House and land should be hers, but not his
+jewels; not the contents of his closet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+THE WILL.
+
+George came again to see him the next day, and had again a long
+conference with him. The laird told him that he had fully resolved to
+leave everything to his daughter, personal as well as real, on the one
+condition that she should marry her cousin; if she would not, then the
+contents of his closet, with his library, and certain articles
+specified, should pass to Crawford.
+
+"And you must take care," he said, "if my death should come suddenly,
+that anything valuable in this room be carried into the closet before it
+is sealed up."
+
+Shrinking as he did from the idea of death, the old man was yet able, in
+the interest of his possessions, to talk of it! It was as if he thought
+the sole consolation that, in the loss of their owner, his things could
+have, was the continuance of their intercourse with each other in the
+heaven of his Mammon-besotted imagination.
+
+George responded heartily, showing a gratitude more genuine than fine:
+every virtue partakes of the ground in which it is grown. He assured the
+laird that, valuable as was in itself his contingent gift, which no man
+could appreciate more than he, it would be far more valuable to him if
+it sealed his adoption as his son-in-law. He would rather owe the
+possession of the wonderful collection to the daughter than to the
+father! In either case the precious property would be held as for him,
+each thing as carefully tended as by the laird's own eye and hand!
+
+Whether it would at the moment have comforted the dying man to be
+assured, as George might have him, that there would be nothing left of
+him to grieve at the loss of his idols--nothing left of him but a
+memory, to last so long as George and Alexa and one or two more should
+remain unburied, I can not tell. It was in any case a dreary outlook for
+him. Hope and faith and almost love had been sucked from his life by
+"the hindering knot-grass" which had spread its white bloodless roots in
+all directions through soul and heart and mind, exhausting and choking
+in them everything of divinest origin. The weeds in George's heart were
+of another kind, and better nor worse in themselves; the misery was that
+neither of them was endeavoring to root them out. The thief who is
+trying to be better is ages ahead of the most honorable man who is
+making no such effort. The one is alive; the other is dead and on the
+way to corruption.
+
+They treated themselves to a gaze together on the cup and the watch;
+then George went to give directions to the laird's lawyer for the
+drawing up of his new will.
+
+The next day it was brought, read, signed by the laird, and his
+signature duly witnessed.
+
+Dawtie being on the spot was made one of the witnesses. The laird
+trembled lest her fanaticism should break out in appeal to the lawyer
+concerning the cup; he could not understand that the cup was nothing to
+her; that she did not imagine herself a setter right of wrongs, but knew
+herself her neighbor's keeper, one that had to deliver his soul from
+death! Had the cup come into her possession, she would have sent it back
+to the owner, but it was not worth her care that the Earl of Borland
+should cast his eyes when he would upon a jewel in a cabinet!
+
+Dawtie was very white as he signed his name. Where the others saw but a
+legal ceremony, she feared her loved master was assigning his soul to
+the devil, as she had read of Dr. Faustus in the old ballad. He was
+gliding away into the dark, and no one to whom he had done a good turn
+with the Mammon of unrighteousness, was waiting to receive him into an
+everlasting habitation! She had and she needed no special cause to love
+her master, any more than to love the chickens and the calves; she loved
+because something that could be loved was there present to her; but he
+had always spoken kindly to her, and been pleased with her endeavor to
+serve him; and now he was going where she could do nothing for
+him!--except pray, as her heart and Andrew had taught her, knowing that
+"all live unto _Him!_" But alas! what were prayers where the man would
+not take the things prayed for! Nevertheless all things _were_ possible
+with God, and she _would_ pray for him!
+
+It was also with white face, and it was with trembling hand that she
+signed her own name, for she felt as if giving him a push down the icy
+slope into the abyss.
+
+But when the thing was done, the old man went quietly to sleep, and
+dreamed of a radiant jewel, glorious as he had never seen jewel, ever
+within yet ever eluding his grasp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+THE SANGREAL.
+
+The next day he seemed better, and Alexa began to hope again. But in the
+afternoon his pulse began to sink, and when Crawford came he could
+welcome him only with a smile and a vain effort to put out his hand.
+George bent down to him. The others, at a sign from his eyes, left the
+room.
+
+"I can't find it, George!" he whispered.
+
+"I put it away for you last night, you remember!" answered George.
+
+"Oh, no, you didn't! I had it in my hand a minute ago! But I fell into a
+doze, and it is gone! George, get it!--get it for me, or I shall go
+mad!" George went and brought it him.
+
+"Thank you! thank you! Now I remember! I thought I was in hell, and they
+took it from me!"
+
+"Don't you be afraid, sir! Fall asleep when you feel inclined. I will
+keep my eye on the cup."
+
+"You will not go away?"
+
+"No; I will stay as long as you like; there is nothing to take me away.
+If I had thought you would be worse, I would not have gone last night."
+
+"I'm not worse! What put that in your head? Don't you hear me speaking
+better? I've thought about it, George, and am convinced the cup is a
+talisman! I am better all the time I hold it! It was because I let you
+put it away that I was worse last night--for no other reason. If it were
+not a talisman, how else could it have so nestled itself into my heart!
+I feel better, always, the moment I take it in my hand! There is
+something more than common about that chalice! George, what if it should
+be the Holy Grail!"
+
+He said it with bated breath, and a great white awe upon his
+countenance. His eyes were shining; his breath came and went fast.
+Slowly his aged cheeks flushed with two bright spots. He looked as if
+the joy of his life was come.
+
+"What if it should be the Holy Grail!" he repeated, and fell asleep with
+the words on his lips.
+
+As the evening deepened into night, he woke. Crawford was sitting beside
+him. A change had come over him. He stared at George as if he could not
+make him out, closed his eyes, opened them, stared, and again closed
+them. He seemed to think he was there for no good.
+
+"Would you like me to call Alexa?" said George.
+
+"Call Dawtie; call Dawtie!" he replied.
+
+George rose to go and call her.
+
+"Beware of her!" said the laird, with glazy eyes, "Beware of Dawtie!"
+
+"How?" asked George.
+
+"Beware of her," he repeated. "If she can get the cup, she will! She
+would take it from me now, if she dared! She will steal it yet! Call
+Dawtie; call Dawtie!"
+
+Alexa was in the drawing-room, on the other side of the hall. George
+went and told her that her father wanted Dawtie.
+
+"I will find her," she said, and rose, but turned and asked:
+
+"How does he seem now?"
+
+"Rather worse," George answered.
+
+"Are you going to be with him through the night?"
+
+"I am; he insists on my staying with him," replied George, almost
+apologetically.
+
+"Then," she returned, "you must have some supper. We will go down, and
+send up Dawtie."
+
+He followed her to the kitchen. Dawtie was not there, but her mistress
+found her.
+
+When she entered her master's room, he lay motionless, "and white with
+the whiteness of what is dead."
+
+She got brandy, and made him swallow some. As soon as he recovered a
+little, he began to talk wildly.
+
+"Oh, Agnes!" he cried, "do not leave me. I'm not a bad man! I'm not what
+Dawtie calls me. I believe in the atonement; I put no trust in myself;
+my righteousness is as filthy rags. Take me with you. I _will_ go with
+you. There! Slip that under your white robe--washed in the blood of the
+Lamb. That will hide it--with the rest of my sins! The unbelieving
+husband is sanctified by the believing wife. Take it; take it; I should
+be lost in heaven without it! I can't see what I've got on, but it must
+be the robe of His righteousness, for I have none of my own! What should
+I be without it! It's all I've got! I couldn't bring away a single thing
+besides--and it's so cold to have but one thing on--I mean one thing in
+your hands! Do you say they will make me sell it? That would be worse
+than coming without it!"
+
+He was talking to his wife!--persuading her to smuggle the cup into
+heaven! Dawtie went on her knees behind the curtain, and began to pray
+for him all she could. But something seemed stopping her, and making her
+prayer come only from her lips.
+
+"Ah," said the voice of her master, "I thought so! How could I go up,
+and you praying against me like that! Cup or no cup, the thing was
+impossible!"
+
+Dawtie opened her eyes--and there he was, holding back the curtain and
+looking round the edge of it with a face of eagerness, effort, and hate,
+as of one struggling to go, and unable to break away.
+
+She rose to her feet.
+
+"You are a fiend!" he cried. "I _will_ go with Agnes!" He gave a cry,
+and ceased, and all was still. They heard the cry in the kitchen, and
+came running up.
+
+They found Dawtie bending over her master, with a scared face. He seemed
+to have struck her, for one cheek was marked with red streaks across its
+whiteness.
+
+"The Grail! the Holy Grail!" he cried. "I found it! I was bringing it
+home! She took it from me! She wants it to--"
+
+His jaw fell, and he was dead. Alexa threw herself beside the body.
+George would have raised her, but she resisted, and lay motionless. He
+stood then behind her, watching an opportunity to get the cup from under
+the bed-clothes, that he might put it in the closet.
+
+He ordered Dawtie to fetch water for her mistress; but Alexa told her
+she did not want any. Once and again George tried to raise her, and get
+his hand under the bed-clothes to feel for the cup.
+
+"He is not dead!" cried Alexa; "he moved!"
+
+"Get some brandy," said George.
+
+She rose, and went to the table for the brandy. George, with the
+pretense of feeling the dead man's heart, threw back the clothes. He
+could find no cup. It had got further down! He would wait!
+
+Alexa lifted her father's head on her arm, but it was plain that brandy
+could not help. She went and sat on a chair away from the bed, hopeless
+and exhausted.
+
+George lifted the clothes from the foot of the bed, then from the
+further side, and then from the nearer, without attracting her
+attention. The cup was nowhere to be seen! He put his hand under the
+body, but the cup was not there! He had to leave the room that Dawtie
+and Meg might prepare it for burial. Alexa went to her chamber.
+
+A moment after, George returned, called Meg to the door, and said:
+
+"There must be a brass cup in the bed somewhere! I brought it to amuse
+him. He was fond of odd things, you know! If you should find it--"
+
+"I will take care of it," answered Meg, and turned from him curtly.
+
+George felt he had not a friend in the house, and that he must leave
+things as they were! The door of the closet was locked, and he could not
+go again to the death-chamber to take the laird's keys from the head of
+the bed! He knew that the two women would not let him. It had been an
+oversight not to secure them! He was glad the watch was safe: that he
+had put in the closet before!--but it mattered little when the cup was
+missing! He went to the stable, got out his horse, and rode home in the
+still gray of a midsummer night.
+
+The stillness and the night seemed thinking to each other. George had
+little imagination, but what he had woke in him now as he rode slowly
+along. Step by step the old man seemed following him, on silent
+church-yard feet, through the eerie whiteness of the night. There was
+neither cloud nor moon, only stars above and around, and a great cold
+crack in the north-east. He was crying after him, in a voice he could
+not make him hear! Was he not straggling to warn him not to come into
+like condemnation? The voice seemed trying to say, "I know! I know now!
+I would not believe, but I know now! Give back the cup; give it back!"
+
+George did not allow to himself that there was "anything" there. It was
+but a vague movement in that commonplace, unmysterious region, his mind!
+He heard nothing, positively nothing, with his ears--therefore there was
+nothing! It was indeed somehow as if one were saying the words, but in
+reality they came only as a thought rising, continually rising, in his
+mind! It was but a thought-sound, and no speech: "I know now! I know
+now! Give it back; give the cup back!" He did not ask himself how the
+thought came; he cast it away as only that insignificant thing, a
+thought--cast it away none the less that he found himself answering
+it--"I can't give it back; I can't find it! Where did you put it? You
+must have taken it with you!"
+
+"What rubbish!" he said to himself ten times, waking up; "of course
+Dawtie took it! Didn't the poor old fellow warn me to beware of her!
+Nobody but her was in the room when we ran in, and found him at the
+point of death! Where did you put it? I can't find it! I can't give it
+back!"
+
+He went over in his mind all that had taken place. The laird had the cup
+when he left him to call Dawtie; and when they came, it was nowhere! He
+was convinced the girl had secured it--in obedience, doubtless, to the
+instruction of her director, ambitious to do justice, and curry favor by
+restoring it! But he could do nothing till the will was read! Was it
+possible Lexy had put it away? No; she had not had the opportunity!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+GEORGE AND THE GOLDEN GOBLET.
+
+With slow-pacing shadows, the hot hours crept athwart the heath, and the
+house, and the dead, and carried the living with them in their invisible
+current. There is no tide in time; it is a steady current, not
+returning. Happy they whom it bears inward to the center of things!
+Alas, for those whom it carries outward to "the flaming walls of
+creation!" The poor old laird who, with all his refinement, all his
+education, all his interest in philology, prosody, history, and
+_reliquial_ humanity, had become the slave of a goblet, had left it
+behind him, had faced the empty universe empty-handed, and vanished with
+a shadow-goblet in his heart; the eyes that gloated over the gems had
+gone to help the grass to grow. But the will of the dead remained to
+trouble for a time the living, for it put his daughter in a painful
+predicament: until Crawford's property was removed from the house, it
+would give him constant opportunity of prosecuting the suit which Aleza
+had reason to think he intended to resume, and the thought of which had
+become to her insupportable.
+
+Great was her astonishment when she learned to what the door in the
+study led, and what a multitude of curious and valuable things were
+there of whose presence in the house she had never dreamed. She would
+gladly have had them for herself; and it pained her to the heart to
+think of the disappointment of the poor ghost when he saw, if he could
+see, his treasured hoard emptied out of its hidden and safe abode. For,
+even if George should magnanimously protest that he did not care for the
+things enough to claim them, and beg that they might remain where they
+were, she could not grant his request, for it would be to accept them
+from him. Had her father left them to her, she would have kept them as
+carefully as even he could desire--with this difference only, that she
+would not have shut them up from giving pleasure to others.
+
+She was growing to care more about the truth--gradually coming to see
+that much she had taken for a more liberal creed, was but the same
+falsehoods in weaker forms, less repulsive only to a mind indifferent to
+the paramount claims of God on His child. She saw something of the
+falseness and folly of attempting to recommend religion as not so
+difficult, so exclusive, so full of prohibition as our ancestors
+believed it. She saw that, although Andrew might regard some things as
+freely given which others thought God forbade, yet he insisted on what
+was infinitely higher and more than the abandonment of everything
+pleasant--the abnegation, namely, of the very self, and the reception of
+God instead. She had hitherto been, with all her supposed progress, only
+a recipient of the traditions of the elders! There must be a deeper
+something--the real religion! She did not yet see that the will of God
+lay in another direction altogether than the heartiest reception of
+dogma!--that God was too great and too generous to care about anything
+except righteousness, and only wanted us to be good children!--that even
+honesty was but the path toward righteousness, a condition so pure that
+honesty itself would never more be an object of thought!
+
+She pondered much about her father, and would find herself praying for
+him, careless of what she had been taught. She could not blind herself
+to what she knew. He had not been a bad man, as men count badness, but
+could she in common sense think him a glorified saint, shining in white
+robes? The polite, kind old man! her own father!--could she, on the
+other hand, believe him in flames forever? If so, what a religion was
+that which required her to believe it, and at the same time to rejoice
+in the Lord always!
+
+She longed for something positive to believe, something into accordance
+with which she might work her feelings. She was still on the outlook for
+definite intellectual formulae to hold. Her intercourse with Andrew had
+as yet failed to open her eyes to the fact that the faith required of us
+is faith in a person, and not in the truest of statements concerning
+anything, even concerning him; or to the fact, that faith in the living
+One, the very essence of it, consists in obedience to Him. A man can
+obey before he is sure, and except he obey the command he knows to be
+right, wherever it may come from, he will never be sure. To find the
+truth, man or woman must be true.
+
+But she much desired another talk with Andrew.
+
+Persuading himself that Alexa's former feeling toward him must in her
+trouble reassert itself, and confident that he would find her loath to
+part with her father's wonderful collection, George waited the effect of
+the will. After the reading of it he had gone away directly, that his
+presence might not add to the irritation which he concluded, not without
+reason, it must, even in the midst of her sorrow, cause in her; but at
+the end of a week he wrote, saying that he felt it his duty, if only in
+gratitude to his friend, to inform himself as to the attention the
+valuable things he had left him might require. He assured Alexa that he
+had done nothing to influence her father in the matter, and much
+regretted the awkward position in which his will had placed both her and
+him. At the same time it was not unnatural that he should wish such
+precious objects to be possessed by one who would care for them as he
+had himself cared for them. He hoped, therefore, that she would allow
+him access to her father's rooms. He would not, she might rest assured,
+intrude himself upon her sorrow, though he would be compelled to ask her
+before long whether he might hope that her father's wish would have any
+influence in reviving the favor which had once been the joy of his life.
+
+Alexa saw that if she consented to see him he would take it as a
+permission to press his claim, and the idea was not to be borne. She
+wrote him therefore a stiff letter, telling him the house was at his
+service, but he must excuse herself.
+
+The next morning brought him early to Potlurg. The cause of his haste
+was his uneasiness about the chalice.
+
+Old Meg opened the door to him, and he followed her straight into the
+drawing-room. Alexa was there, and far from expecting him. But, annoyed
+at his appearance as she was, she found his manner and behavior less
+unpleasant than at any time since his return. He was gentle and
+self-restrained, assuming no familiarity beyond that of a distant
+relative, and gave the impression of having come against his will, and
+only from a sense of duty.
+
+"Did you not have my note?" she asked.
+
+He had hoped, he said, to save her the trouble of writing.
+
+She handed him her father's bunch of keys, and left the room.
+
+George went to the laird's closet, and having spent an hour in it, again
+sought Alexa. The wonderful watch was in his hand.
+
+"I feel the more pleasure, Alexa," he said, "in begging you to accept
+this trinket, that it was the last addition to your dear father's
+collection. I had myself the good fortune to please him with it a few
+days before his death."
+
+"No, thank you, George," returned Alexa. "It is a beautiful thing--my
+father showed it me--but I can not take it."
+
+"It was more of you than him I thought when I purchased it, Alexa. You
+know why I could not offer it you."
+
+"The same reason exists now."
+
+"I am sorry to have to force myself on your attention, but--"
+
+"Dawtie!" cried Alexa.
+
+Dawtie came running.
+
+"Wait a minute, Dawtie. I will speak to you presently," said her
+mistress.
+
+George rose. He had laid the watch on the table, and seemed to have
+forgotten it.
+
+"Please take the watch with you," said Alexa.
+
+"Certainly, if you wish it!" he answered.
+
+"And my father's keys, too," she added.
+
+"Will you not be kind enough to take charge of them?"
+
+"I would rather not be accountable for anything under them. No; you must
+take the keys."
+
+"I can not help regretting," said George, "that your honored father
+should have thought fit to lay this burden of possession upon me."
+
+Alexa made no answer.
+
+"I comforted myself with the hope that you would feel them as much your
+own as ever!" he resumed, in a tone of disappointment and dejection.
+
+"I did not know of their existence before I knew they were never to be
+mine."
+
+"Never, Alexa?"
+
+"Never."
+
+George walked to the door, but there turned, and said:
+
+"By the way, you know that cup your father was so fond of?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not that gold cup, set with stones?"
+
+"I saw something in his hands once, in bed, that might have been a cup."
+
+"It is a thing of great value--of pure gold, and every stone in it a
+gem."
+
+"Indeed!" returned Alexa, with marked indifference.
+
+"Yes; it was the work of the famous Benvenuto Cellini, made for Pope
+Clement the Seventh, for his own communion-chalice. Your father priced
+it at three thousand pounds. In his last moments, when his mind was
+wandering, he fancied it the Holy Grail He had it in the bed with him
+when he died; that I know."
+
+"And it is missing?"
+
+"Perhaps Dawtie could tell us what has become of it. She was with the
+laird at the last."
+
+Dawtie, who had stood aside to let him pass to the open door, looked up
+with a flash in her eyes, but said nothing.
+
+"Have you seen the cup, Dawtie?" asked her mistress.
+
+"No, ma'am."
+
+"Do you know it?"
+
+"Very well, ma'am."
+
+"Then you don't know what has become of it?"
+
+"No, ma'am; I know nothing about it."
+
+"Take care, Dawtie," said George. "This is a matter that will have to be
+searched into."
+
+"When did you last see it, Dawtie?" inquired Alexa.
+
+"The very day my master died, ma'am. He was looking at it, but when he
+saw I saw him he took it inside the bed-clothes."
+
+"And you have not seen it since?"
+
+"No, ma'am."
+
+"And you do not know where it is?" said George.
+
+"No, sir. How should I?"
+
+"You never touched it?"
+
+"I can not say that, sir; I brought it him from his closet; he sent me
+for it."
+
+"What do you think may have become of it?"
+
+"I don't know, sir."
+
+"Would you allow me to make a thorough search in the place where it was
+last seen?" asked George, turning to his cousin.
+
+"By all means. Dawtie, go and help Mr. Crawford to look."
+
+"Please, ma'am, it can't be there. We've had the carpet up, and the
+floor scrubbed. There's not a hole or a corner we haven't been into--and
+that yesterday."
+
+"We must find it," said George. "It must be in the house."
+
+"It must, sir," said Dawtie.
+
+But George more than doubted it
+
+"I do believe," he said, "the laird would rather have lost his whole
+collection."
+
+"Indeed, sir, I think he would."
+
+"Then you have talked to him about it?"
+
+"Yes, I have, sir," answered Dawtie, sorry she had brought out the
+question.
+
+"And you know the worth of the thing?"
+
+"Yes, sir; that is, I don't know how much it was worth, but I should say
+pounds and pounds."
+
+"Then, Dawtie, I must ask you again, _where is it?_"
+
+"I know nothing about it, sir. I wish I did!"
+
+"Why do you wish you did?"
+
+"Because--" began Dawtie, and stopped short; she shrunk from impugning
+the honesty of the dead man--and in the presence of his daughter.
+
+"It looks a little fishy, don't it, Dawtie? Why not speak straight out?
+Perhaps you would not mind searching Meg's trunk for me. She may have
+taken it for a bit of old brass, you know."
+
+"I will answer for my servants, Mr. Crawford," said Alexa. "I will not
+have old Meg's box searched."
+
+"It is desirable to get rid of any suspicion," replied George.
+
+"I have none," returned Alexa.
+
+George was silent
+
+"I will ask Meg, if you like, sir," said Dawtie; "but I am sure it will
+be no use. A servant in this house soon learns not to go by the look of
+things. We don't treat anything here as if we knew all about it."
+
+"When did you see the goblet first?" persisted George.
+
+"Goblet, sir? I thought you were speaking of the gold cup."
+
+By _goblet_ Dawtie understood a small iron pot.
+
+"Goblet, or cup, or chalice--whatever you like to call it--I ask how you
+came to know about it."
+
+"I know very little about it."
+
+"It is plain you know more than you care to tell. If you will not answer
+me you will have to answer a magistrate."
+
+"Then I will answer a magistrate," said Dawtie, beginning to grow angry.
+
+"You had better answer me, Dawtie. It will be easier for you. What do
+you know about the cup?"
+
+"I know it was not master's, and is not yours--really and truly."
+
+"What can have put such a lie in your head?"
+
+"If it be a lie, sir, it is told in plain print."
+
+"Where?"
+
+But Dawtie judged it time to stop. She bethought herself that she would
+not have said so much had she not been angry.
+
+"Sir," she answered, "you have been asking me questions all this time,
+and I have been answering them; it is your turn to answer me one."
+
+"If I see proper."
+
+"Did my old master tell you the history of that cup?"
+
+"I do not choose to answer the question."
+
+"Very well, sir."
+
+Dawtie turned to leave the room.
+
+"Stop! stop!" cried Crawford; "I have not done with you yet, my girl.
+You have not told me what you meant when you said the cup did not belong
+to the laird."
+
+"I do not choose to answer the question," said Dawtie.
+
+"Then you shall answer it to a magistrate."
+
+"I will, sir," she replied, and stood.
+
+Crawford left the room.
+
+He rode home in a rage. Dawtie went about her work with a bright spot on
+each cheek, indignant at the man's rudeness, but praying God to take her
+heart in His hand, and cool the fever of it.
+
+The words rose in her mind:
+
+"It must needs be that offenses come, but woe onto that man by whom they
+come."
+
+She was at once filled with pity for the man who could side with the
+wrong, and want everything his own way, for, sooner or later, confusion
+must be his portion; the Lord had said: "There is nothing covered that
+shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known."
+
+"He needs to be shamed," she said, "but he is thy child; care for him,
+too."
+
+George felt that he had not borne a dignified part, and knew that his
+last chance with Alexa was gone. Then he too felt the situation
+unendurable, and set about removing his property. He wrote to Alexa that
+he could no longer doubt it her wish to be rid of the collection, and
+able to use the room. It was desirable also, he said, that a thorough
+search should be made in those rooms before he placed the matter of the
+missing cup in the hands of the magistrates.
+
+Dawtie's last words had sufficed to remove any lingering doubt as to
+what had become of the chalice. It did not occur to him that one so
+anxious to do the justice of restoration would hardly be capable of
+telling lies, of defiling her soul that a bit of property might be
+recovered; he took it for granted that she meant to be liberally
+rewarded by the earl.
+
+George would have ill understood the distinction Dawtie made--that the
+body of the cup _might_ belong to him, but the soul of the cup _did_
+belong to another; or her assertion that where the soul was there the
+body ought to be; or her argument that He who had the soul had the right
+to ransom the body--a reasoning possible to a child-like nature only;
+she had pondered to find the true law of the case, and this was her
+conclusion.
+
+George suspected, and grew convinced that Alexa was a party to the
+abstraction of the cup. She had, he said, begun to share in the
+extravagant notions of a group of pietists whose leader was that
+detestable fellow, Ingram. Alexa was attached to Dawtie, and Dawtie was
+one of them. He believed Alexa would do anything to spite him. To bring
+trouble on Dawtie would be to punish her mistress, and the pious farmer,
+too.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+THE PROSECUTION.
+
+As soon as Crawford had his things away from Potlurg, satisfied the cup
+was nowhere among them, he made a statement of the case to a magistrate
+he knew; and so represented it, as the outcome of the hypocrisy of
+pietism, that the magistrate, hating everything called fanatical, at
+once granted him a warrant to apprehend Dawtie on the charge of theft.
+
+It was a terrible shock. Alexa cried out with indignation. Dawtie turned
+white and then red, but uttered never a word.
+
+"Dawtie," said her mistress, "tell me what you know about the cup. You
+do know something that you have not told me!"
+
+"I do, ma'am, but I will not tell it except I am forced."
+
+"That you are going to be, my poor girl! I am very sorry, for I am
+perfectly sure you have done nothing you know to be wrong!"
+
+"I have done nothing you or anybody would think wrong, ma'am."
+
+She put on her Sunday frock, and went down to go with the policeman. To
+her joy she found her mistress at the door, ready to accompany her. They
+had two miles or more to walk, but that was nothing to either.
+
+Questioned by the magistrate, not unkindly, for her mistress was there,
+Dawtie told everything--how first she came upon the likeness and history
+of the cup, and then saw the cup itself in her master's hands.
+
+Crawford told how the laird had warned him against Dawtie, giving him to
+understand that she had been seized with a passion for the goblet such
+that she would peril her soul to possess it, and that he dared not let
+her know where it was.
+
+"Sir," said Dawtie, "he could na hae distrusted me like that, for he gae
+me his keys, and sent me to fetch the cup when he was ower ill to gang
+till't."
+
+"If that be true, your worship," said Crawford, "it does not affect the
+fact that the cup was in the hands of the old man when I left him and
+she went to him, and from that moment it has not been seen."
+
+"Did he have it when you went to him?" asked the magistrate.
+
+"I didna see't, sir. He was in a kind o' faint when I got up."
+
+Crawford said that, hearing a cry, he ran up again, and found the old
+man at the point of death, with just strength to cry out before he died,
+that Dawtie had taken the cup from him. Dawtie was leaning over him, but
+he had not imagined the accusation more than the delirious fancy of a
+dying man, till it appeared that the cup was not to be found.
+
+The magistrate made out Dawtie's commitment for trial. He remarked that
+she might have been misled by a false notion of duty: he had been
+informed that she belonged to a sect claiming the right to think for
+themselves on the profoundest mysteries--and here was the result! There
+was not a man in Scotland less capable of knowing what any woman was
+thinking, or more incapable of doubting his own insight.
+
+Doubtless, he went on, she had superstitiously regarded the cup as
+exercising a Satanic influence on the mind of her master; but even if
+she confessed it now, he must make an example of one whose fanaticism
+would set wrong right after the notions of an illiterate sect, and not
+according to the laws of the land. He just send the case to be tried by
+a jury! If she convinced the twelve men composing that jury, of the
+innocence she protested, she would then be a free woman.
+
+Dawtie stood very white all the time he was speaking, and her lips every
+now and then quivered as if she were going to cry, but she did not.
+Alexa offered bail, but his worship would not accept it: his righteous
+soul was too indignant. She went to Dawtie and kissed her, and together
+they followed the policeman to the door, where Dawtie was to get into a
+spring-cart with him, and be driven to the county town, there to lie
+waiting the assizes.
+
+The bad news had spread so fast that as they came out, up came Andrew.
+At sight of him Dawtie gently laughed, like a pleased child. The
+policeman, who, like many present, had been prejudiced by her looks in
+her favor, dropped behind, and she walked between her mistress and
+Andrew to the cart.
+
+"Dawtie!" said Andrew.
+
+"Oh, Andrew! has God forgotten me?" she returned, stopping short.
+
+"For God to forget," answered Andrew, "would be not to be God any
+longer!"
+
+"But here I am on my road til a prison, Andrew! I didna think He would
+hae latten them do't!"
+
+"A bairn micht jist as weel say, whan its nurse lays't intil its cradle,
+and says: 'Noo, lie still!' 'Mammy, I didna think ye would hae latten
+her do't!' He's a' aboot ye and in ye, Dawtie, and this is come to ye
+jist to lat ye ken 'at He is. He raised ye up jist to spen' His glory
+upo'! I say, Dawtie, did Jesus Christ deserve what He got?"
+
+"No ae bit, Andrew! What for should ye speir sic a thing?"
+
+"Then do ye think God hae forgotten Him?"
+
+"May be He thoucht it jist for a minute!"
+
+"Well, ye hae thoucht jist for a minute, and ye maun think it nae mair."
+
+"But God couldna forget _Him_, An'rew: He got it a' for doin' His will!"
+
+"Evil may come upon as from other causes than doing the will of God; but
+from whatever cause it comes, the thing we have to see to is, that
+through it all we do the will of God!"
+
+"What's His will noo, An'rew?"
+
+"That ye tak it quaietly. Shall not the Father do wi' His ain child what
+He will! Can He no shift it frae the tae airm to the tither, but the
+bairn maun girn? He has ye, Dawtie! It's a' richt!"
+
+"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him!" said Dawtie.
+
+She raised her head. The color had come back to her face; her lips had
+ceased to tremble; she stepped on steadily to where, a few yards from
+the door, the spring-cart was waiting her. She bade her mistress
+good-bye, then turned to Andrew and said:
+
+"Good-bye, An'rew! I am not afraid."
+
+"I am going with you, Dawtie," said Andrew.
+
+"No, sir, you can't do that!" said the policeman; "at least you can't go
+in the trap!"
+
+"No, no, Andrew!" cried Dawtie. "I would rather go alone. I am quite
+happy now. God will do with me as He pleases!"
+
+"I am going with you," said Alexa, "if the policeman will let me."
+
+"Oh, yes, ma'am! A lady's different!--I've got to account for the
+prisoner you see, sir!"
+
+"I don't think you should, ma'am," said Dawtie. "It's a long way!"
+
+"I am going," returned her mistress, decisively.
+
+"God bless you, ma'am!" said Andrew.
+
+Alexa had heard what he said to Dawtie. A new light had broken upon her.
+"God is like that, is He?" she said to herself. "You can go close up to
+Him whenever you like?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+A TALK AT POTLURG.
+
+It would be three weeks before the assizes came. The house of Potlurg
+was searched by the police from garret to cellar, but in vain; the cup
+was not found.
+
+As soon as they gave up searching, Alexa had the old door of the laird's
+closet, discernible enough on the inside, reopened, and the room
+cleaned. Almost unfurnished as it was, she made of it her
+sitting-parlor. But often her work or her book would lie on her lap, and
+she would find herself praying for the dear father for whom she could do
+nothing else now, but for whom she might have done so much, had she been
+like Dawtie. Her servant had cared for her father more than she!
+
+As she sat there one morning alone, brooding a little, thinking a
+little, reading a little, and praying through it all, Meg appeared, and
+said Maister Andrew wanted to see her.
+
+He had called more than once to inquire after Dawtie, but had not before
+asked to see her mistress.
+
+Alexa felt herself unaccountably agitated. When he walked into the room,
+however, she was able to receive him quietly. He came, he said, to ask
+when she had seen Dawtie. He would have gone himself to see her, but his
+father was ailing, and he had double work to do. Besides, she did not
+seem willing to see him! Alexa told him she had been with her the day
+before, and had found her a little pale, and, she feared, rather
+troubled in her mind. She said she would trust God to the last, but
+confessed herself assailed by doubts.
+
+"I said to her," continued Alexa, "'Be sure, Dawtie, God will make your
+innocence known one day!' She answered: 'Of course, ma'am, there is
+nothing hidden that shall not be known; but I am not impatient about
+that. The Jews to this day think Jesus an impostor!' 'But surely,' said
+I, 'you care that people should understand you are no thief, Dawtie!'
+'Yes, I do,' she answered; 'all I say is, that is does not trouble me. I
+want only to be downright sure that God is looking after me all the
+time. I am willing to sit in prison till I die, if He pleases.' 'God
+can't please that!' I said. 'If He does not care to take me out, I do
+not care to go out,' said Dawtie. 'It's not that I'm good; it's only
+that I don't care for anything He doesn't care for. What would it be
+that all men acquitted me, if God did not trouble Himself about His
+children!'"
+
+"You see, ma'am, it comes to this," said Andrew: "it is God Dawtie cares
+about, not herself! If God is all right, Dawtie is all right. The _if_
+sometimes takes one shape, sometimes another, but the fear is the
+same--and the very fear is faith. Sometimes the fear is that there may
+be no God, and that you might call a fear for herself; but when Dawtie
+fears lest God should not be caring for her, that is a fear for God; for
+if God did not care for His creature, He would be no true God!"
+
+"Then He could not exist!"
+
+"True; and so you are back on the other fear!"
+
+"What would you have said to her, Mr. Ingram?"
+
+"I would have reminded her that Jesus was perfectly content with His
+Father; that He knew what was coming on Himself, and never doubted
+Him--just gloried that His Father was what He knew Him to be."
+
+"I see! But what did you mean when you said that Dawtie's very fear was
+faith?"
+
+"Think, ma'am: people that only care to be saved, that is, not to be
+punished for their sins, are anxious only about themselves, not about
+God and His glory at all. They talk about the glory of God, but they
+make it consist in pure selfishness! According to them, He seeks
+everything for Himself; which is dead against the truth of God, a
+diabolic slander of God. It does not trouble them to believe such things
+about God; they do not even desire that God should not be like that;
+they only want to escape Him. They dare not say God will not do this or
+that, however clear it be that it would not be fair; they are in terror
+of contradicting the Bible. They make more of the Bible than of God, and
+so fail to find the truth of the Bible, and accept things concerning God
+which are not in the Bible, and are the greatest of insults to Him!
+Dawtie never thinks about saving her soul; she has no fear about her
+soul; she is only anxious about God and His glory. How the doubts come,
+God knows; but if she did not love God, they would not be there. Jesus
+says God will speedily avenge His elect--those that cry day and night to
+Him--which I take to mean that He will soon save them from all such
+miseries. Free Dawtie from unsureness about God, and she has no fear
+left. All is well, in the prison or on the throne of God, if He only be
+what she thinks He is. If any one say that doubt can not coexist with
+faith, I answer, it can with love, and love is the greater of the two,
+yea, is the very heart of faith itself. God's children are not yet God's
+men and women. The God that many people believe in, claiming to be _the_
+religious because they believe in Him, is a God not worth believing in,
+a God that ought not to be believed in. The life given by such a God
+would be a life not worth living, even if He made His votaries as happy
+as they would choose to be. A God like that could not make a woman like
+Dawtie anxious about Him! If God be not each as Jesus, what good would
+the proving of her innocence be to Dawtie! A mighty thing indeed that
+the world should confess she was not a thief! But to know that there is
+a perfect God, one for us to love with all the power of love of which we
+feel we are capable, is worth going out of existence for; while to know
+that God himself, must make every throb of consciousness a divine
+ecstasy!"
+
+Andrew's heart was full, and out of its fullness he spoke. Never before
+had he been able in the presence of Alexa to speak as he felt. Never
+before had he had any impulse to speak as now. As soon would he have
+gone to sow seed on a bare rock, as words of spirit and life in her
+ears!
+
+"I am beginning to understand you," she said. "Will you forgive me? I
+have been very self-confident and conceited! What a mercy things are not
+as I thought they were--thought they ought to be!"
+
+"And the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the
+sea!" said Andrew. "And men's hearts shall be full of bliss, because
+they have found their Father, and He is what He is, and they are going
+home to Him."
+
+He rose.
+
+"You will come and see me again soon--will you not?" she said.
+
+"As often as you please, ma'am; I am your servant."
+
+"Then come to-morrow."
+
+He went on the morrow, and the next day, and the day after--almost every
+day while Dawtie was waiting her trial.
+
+Almost every morning Alexa went by train to see Dawtie; and the news she
+brought, Andrew would carry to the girl's parents. Dawtie continued
+unwilling to see Andrew: he had had trouble enough with her already, she
+said; but Andrew could not quite understand her refusal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+A GREAT OFFERING.
+
+Two days before the assizes, Andrew was with Alexa in her parlor. It was
+a cool autumn evening, and she proposed they should go on the heath,
+which came close up to the back of the house.
+
+When they reached the top of the hill, a cold wind was blowing, and
+Andrew, full of care for old and young, man and woman, made Alexa draw
+her shawl closer about her throat, where, with his rough, plow-man
+hands, he pinned it for her. She saw, felt, and noted his hands; a
+pitying admiration, of which only the pity was foolish, woke in her; and
+ere she knew, she was looking up in his face with such a light in her
+eyes that Andrew found himself embarrassed, and let his fall. Moved by
+that sense of class-superiority which has no place in the kingdom of
+heaven, she attributed his modesty to self-depreciation, and the
+conviction rose in her, which has often risen in such as she, that there
+is a magnanimity demanding the sacrifice, not merely of conventional
+dignity, but of conventional propriety. She felt that a great lady, to
+be more than great, must stoop; that it was her part to make the
+approach which, between equals, was the part of the man; the patroness
+_must_ do what the woman might not. This man was worthy of any woman;
+and he should not, because of the humility that dared not presume, fail
+of what he deserved!
+
+"Andrew," she said, "I am going to do an unusual thing, but you are not
+like other men, and will not misunderstand! I know you now--know you as
+far above other men as the clouds are above this heath!"
+
+"Oh, no, no, ma'am!" protested Andrew.
+
+
+"Hear me out, Andrew," she interrupted--then paused a little.
+
+"Tell me," she resumed, "ought we not to love best the best we know?"
+
+"Surely, ma'am!" he answered, uncomfortable, but not anticipating what
+was on the way.
+
+"Andrew, you are the best I know! I have said it! I do not care what the
+world thinks; you are more to me than all the worlds! If you will take
+me, I am yours."
+
+She looked him in the face with the feeling that she had done a brave
+and a right thing.
+
+Andrew stood stock-still.
+
+"_Me_, ma'am!" he gasped, and grew pale--then red as a foggy sun. But he
+made scarcely a moment's pause.
+
+"It's a God-like thing you have done, ma'am!" he said. "But I can not
+make the return it deserves. From the heart of my heart I thank you. I
+can say no more."
+
+His voice trembled. She heard a stifled sob. He had turned away to
+conceal his emotion.
+
+And now came greatness indeed to the front. Instead of drawing herself
+up with the bitter pride of a woman whose best is scorned, Alexa behaved
+divinely. She went close to Andrew, laid her hand on his arm, and said:
+
+"Forgive me, Andrew. I made a mistake. I had no right to make it. Do not
+be grieved, I beg; you are nowise to blame. Let us continue friends!"
+
+"Thank you, ma'am!" said Andrew, in a tone of deepest gratitude; and
+neither said a word more. They walked side by side back to the house.
+
+Said Alexa to herself:
+
+"I have at least been refused by a man worthy of the honor I did him! I
+made no mistake in _him_!"
+
+When they reached the door, she stopped. Andrew took off his hat, and
+said, holding it in his hand as he spoke:
+
+"Good-night, ma'am! You _will_ send for me if you want me?"
+
+"I will. Good-night!" said Alexa, and went in with a strange weight on
+her heart.
+
+Shut in her room, she wept sorely, but not bitterly; and the next day
+old Meg, at least, saw no change in her.
+
+Said Andrew to himself:
+
+"I will be her servant always."
+
+He was humbled, not uplifted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+
+ANOTHER OFFERING.
+
+The next evening, that before the trial, Andrew presented himself at the
+prison, and was admitted. Dawtie came to meet him, held out her hand,
+and said:
+
+"Thank you, Andrew!"
+
+"How are you, Dawtie?"
+
+"Well enough, Andrew!"
+
+"God is with us, Dawtie."
+
+"Are you sure, Andrew?"
+
+"Dawtie, I can not see God's eyes looking at me, but I am ready to do
+what He wants me to do, and so I feel He is with me."
+
+"Oh, Andrew, I wish I could be sure!"
+
+"Let us take the risk together, Dawtie!"
+
+"What risk, Andrew?"
+
+"The risk that makes you not sure, Dawtie--the risk that is at once the
+worst and the least--the risk that our hope should be in vain, and there
+is no God. But, Dawtie, there is that in my heart that cries Christ
+_did_ die, and _did_ rise again, and God is doing His best. His perfect
+love is our perfect safety. It is hard upon Him that His own children
+will not trust Him!"
+
+"If He would but show Himself!"
+
+"The sight of Him now would make us believe in Him without knowing Him;
+and what kind of faith would that be for Him or for us! We should be bad
+children, taking Him for a weak parent! We must _know_ Him! When we do,
+there will be no fear, no doubt. We shall run straight home! Dawtie,
+shall we go together?"
+
+"Yes, surely, Andrew! God knows I try. I'm ready to do whatever you tell
+me, Andrew!"
+
+"No, Dawtie! You must never do what I tell you, except you think it
+right."
+
+"Yes, I know that. But I am sure I should think it right!"
+
+"We've been of one mind for a long time now, Dawtie!"
+
+"Sin' lang afore I had ony min' o' my ain!" responded Dawtie, turning to
+her vernacular.
+
+"Then let us be of one heart too, Dawtie!"
+
+She was so accustomed to hear Andrew speak in figures, that sometimes
+she looked through and beyond his words.
+
+She did so now, and seeing nothing, stood perplexed.
+
+"Winna ye, Dawtie?" said Andrew, holding out his hands.
+
+"I dinna freely un'erstan' ye, An'rew."
+
+"Ye h'avenly idiot," cried Andrew. "Wull ye be my wife, or wull ye no?"
+
+Dawtie threw her shapely arms above her head--straight up, her head fell
+back, and she seemed to gaze into the unseen. Then she gave a gasp, her
+arms dropped to her sides, and she would have fallen had not Andrew
+taken her.
+
+"Andrew! Andrew!" she sighed, and was still in his arms.
+
+"Winna ye, Dawtie?" he whispered.
+
+"Wait," she murmured; "wait."
+
+"I winna wait, Dawtie."
+
+"Wait till ye hear what they'll say the morn."
+
+"Dawtie, I'm ashamed o' ye. What care I, an' what daur ye care what they
+say. Are ye no the Lord's clean yowie? Gien ye care for what ony man
+thinks o' ye but the Lord himsel', ye're no a' His. Gien ye care for
+what I think o' ye, ither-like nor what He thinks, ye're no sae His as I
+maun hae ye afore we pairt company--which, please God, 'ill be on the
+ither side o' eternity."
+
+"But, An'rew, it winna do to say o' yer father's son 'at he took his
+wife frae the jail."
+
+"'Deed they s' say naething ither! What ither cam I for? Would ye hae me
+ashamed o' ane o' God's elec'--a lady o' the Lord's ain coort?"
+
+"Eh, but I'm feart it's a' the compassion o' yer hert, sir. Ye wad fain
+mak' up to me for the disgrace. Ye could weel do wantin' me."
+
+"I winna say," returned Andrew, "that I couldna live wantin' ye, for
+that wad be to say I wasna worth offerin' ye, and it would be to deny
+Him 'at made you and me for ane anither, but I wad have a some sair
+time! I'll jist speak to the minister to be ready the minute the Lord
+opens yer prison-door."
+
+The same moment in came the governor with his wife; they were much
+interested in Dawtie.
+
+"Sir, and ma'am," said Andrew, "will you please witness that this woman
+is my wife?"
+
+"It's Maister Andrew Ingram o' the Knowe," said Dawtie. "He wants me to
+merry him."
+
+"I want her to go before the court as my wife," said Andrew. "She would
+have me wait till the jury said this or that. The jury give me my wife.
+As if I didn't know her."
+
+"You won't have him, I see," said Mrs. Innes, turning to Dawtie.
+
+"Hae him!" cried Dawtie, "I wad hae him gien there war but the heid o'
+him."
+
+"Then you are husband and wife," said the governor; "only you should
+have the thing done properly by the minister--afterward."
+
+"I'll see to that, sir," answered Andrew.
+
+"Come, wife," said the governor, "we must let them have a few minutes
+alone together."
+
+"There," said Andrew, when the door closed, "ye're my wife, noo, Dawtie.
+Lat them acquit ye or condemn ye, it's you an' me, noo, whatever come!"
+
+Dawtie broke into a flood of tears--an experience all but new to
+her--and found it did her good. She smiled as she wiped her eyes, and
+said:
+
+"Weel, An'rew, gien the Lord hasna appeart in His ain likeness to
+deliver me, He's done the next best thing."
+
+"Dawtie," answered Andrew, "the Lord never does the next best. The thing
+He does is always better than the thing He does not."
+
+"Lat me think, an' I'll try to un'erstan'," said Dawtie, but Andrew went
+on.
+
+"The best thing, whan a body's no ready for 't, would be the warst to
+gie him--or ony gait no the thing for the Father o' lichts to gie.
+Shortbreid micht be waur for a half hungert bairn nor a stane. But the
+minute it's fit we should look upo' the face o' the Son o' Man, oor ain
+God-born brither, we'll see him, Dawtie; we'll see him. Hert canna think
+what it'll be like. And noo, Dawtie, wull ye tell me what for ye wouldna
+lat me come and see ye afore?"
+
+"I wull, An'rew; I was nae suner left to mysel' i' the prison than I
+faun' mysel' thinkin' aboot _you_--you first, and no the Lord. I said to
+mysel', 'This is awfu'. I'm leanin' upo' An'rew, and no upo' the First
+and the Last.' I saw that that was to brak awa' frae Him that was
+nearest me, and trust ane that was farther awa'--which wasna i' the holy
+rizzon o' things. Sae I said to mysel' I would meet my fate wi' the Lord
+alane, and wouldna hae you come 'atween Him and me. Noo ye hae 't,
+An'rew."
+
+Andrew took her in his arms and said:
+
+"Thank ye, Dawtie. Eh, but I _am_ content And she thought she hadna
+faith. Good-night, Dawtie. Ye maun gane to yer bed, an' grow stoot in
+hert for the morn."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+
+AFTER THE VERDICT.
+
+Through the governor of the jail Andrew obtained permission to stand
+near the prisoner at the trial. The counsel for the prosecution did all
+he could, and the counsel for the defense not much--at least Dawtie's
+friends thought so--and the judge summed up with the greatest
+impartiality. Dawtie's simplicity and calmness, her confidence devoid of
+self-assertion, had its influence on the jury, and they gave the
+uncomfortable verdict of "_Not Proven_," so that Dawtie was discharged.
+
+Alexa had a carriage ready to take her home. As Dawtie went to it she
+whispered to her husband:
+
+"Ye hae to tak me wantin' a character, Andrew."
+
+"Jesus went home without a character, and was well received," said
+Andrew, with a smile. "You'll be over to-night to see the old folk?"
+
+"Yes, Andrew; I'm sure the mistress will let me."
+
+"Don't say a word to her of our marriage, except she has heard, and
+mentions it. I want to tell her myself. You will find me at the croft
+when you come, and I will go back with you."
+
+In the evening Dawtie came, and brought the message that her mistress
+would like to see him.
+
+When he entered the room Alexa rose to meet him. He stopped short.
+
+"I thank you, ma'am," he said, "for your great kindness to Dawtie. We
+were married in the prison. She is my wife now."
+
+"Married! Your wife?" echoed Alexa, flushing, and drawing back a step.
+
+"I had loved her long, ma'am; and when trouble came her the time came
+for me to stand by her side."
+
+"You had not spoken to her then--till--"
+
+"Not till last night. I said before the governor of the prison and Mrs.
+Innes that we were husband and wife. If you please, ma'am, we shall have
+the proper ceremony as soon as possible."
+
+"I wish I had known," said Alexa--almost to herself, with a troubled
+smile.
+
+"I wish you had, ma'am," responded Andrew. She raised her face with a
+look of confidence.
+
+"Will you please to forget, Andrew?"
+
+Nobility had carried the day. She had not one mean thought either of him
+or the girl.
+
+"To forget is not in man's power, ma'am; but I shall never think a
+thought you would wish unthought."
+
+She held out her hand to him. They were friends forever.
+
+"Will you be married here, Andrew? The house is at your service," she
+said.
+
+"Don't you think it ought to be at her father's, ma'am?"
+
+"You are right," said Alexa; and she sat down.
+
+Andrew stood in silence, for he saw she was meditating something. At
+length she raised her head, and spoke.
+
+"You have been compelled to take the step sooner than you intended--have
+you not?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Then you can hardly be so well prepared as you would like to be!"
+
+"We shall manage."
+
+"It will hardly be convenient for your mother, I fear! You have nowhere
+else to take her--have you?"
+
+"No, ma'am; but my mother loves us both. And," he added, simply, "where
+there's room for me, there's room for her now!"
+
+"Would you mind if I asked you how your parents take it?"
+
+"They don't say much. You see, ma'am, we are all proud until we learn
+that we have one Master, and we all are brethren. But they will soon get
+over it."
+
+When I see a man lifting up those that are beneath him, not pulling down
+those that are above him, I will believe in his communism. Those who
+most resent being looked down upon, are in general the readiest to look
+down upon others. It is not principle, it is not truth, it is themselves
+they regard. Of all false divinities, Self is the most illogical.
+
+"If God had been the mighty monarch they represent Him," continued
+Andrew, "He would never have let us come near Him!"
+
+"Did you hear Mr. Rackstraw's sermon on the condescension of God?" asked
+Alexa.
+
+"The condescension of God, ma'am! There is no such thing. God never
+condescended, with one Jove-like nod, all his mighty, eternal life! God
+condescend to His children--their spirits born of His spirit, their
+hearts the children of His heart! No, ma'am! there never was a falser,
+uglier word in any lying sermon!"
+
+His eyes flashed and his face shone. Alexa thought she had never seen
+him look so grand.
+
+"I see!" she answered. "I will never use the word about God again!"
+
+"Thank you, ma'am."
+
+"Why should you thank me?"
+
+"I beg your pardon; I had no right to thank you. But I am so tried with
+the wicked things said about God by people who think they are speaking
+to His pleasure and not in his despite, that I am apt to talk foolishly.
+I don't wonder at God's patience with the wicked, but I do wonder at His
+patience with the pious!"
+
+"They don't know better!"
+
+"How are they to know better while they are so sure about everything! I
+would infinitely rather believe in no God at all, than in such a God as
+they would have me believe in!"
+
+"Oh, but Andrew, I had not a glimmer of what you meant--of what you
+really objected to, or what you loved! Now, I can not even recall what
+it was I did not like in your teaching. I think it was that, instead of
+listening to know what you meant, I was always thinking how to oppose
+you, or trying to find out by what name you were to be called. One time
+I thought you were an Arminian, another time a Socinian, then a
+Swedenborgian, then an Arian! I read a history of the sects of the
+middle ages, just to see where I could set you down. I told people you
+did not believe this, and did not believe that, when I knew neither what
+you believed, nor what you did not believe. I thought I did, but it was
+all mistake and imagination. When you would not discuss things with me,
+I thought you were afraid of losing the argument. Now I see that,
+instead of disputing about opinions, I should have been saying: 'God be
+merciful to me a sinner!'"
+
+"God be praised!" said Andrew. "Ma'am, you are a free woman! The Father
+has called you, and you have said: 'Here I am.'"
+
+"I hope so, Andrew, thanks to God by you! But I am forgetting what I
+wanted to say! Would it not be better--after you are married, I mean--to
+let Dawtie stay with me awhile?--I will promise you not to work her too
+hard," she added, with a little laugh.
+
+"I see, ma'am! It is just like you! You want people to know that you
+believe in her!"
+
+"Yes; but I want also to do what I can to keep such good tenants.
+Therefore I must add a room or two to your house, that there may be good
+accommodation for you all."
+
+"You make thanks impossible, ma'am! I will speak to Dawtie about it. I
+know she will be glad not to leave you! I will take care not to trouble
+the house."
+
+"You shall do just as Dawtie and you please. Where Dawtie is, there will
+be room for you!"
+
+Already Alexa's pain had grown quite bearable.
+
+Dawtie needed no persuading. She was so rich in the possession of Andrew
+that she could go a hundred years without seeing him, she said. It was
+only that he would come and see her, instead of her going to see him!
+
+In ten days they were married at her father's cottage. Her father and
+mother then accompanied her and Andrew to the Knowe, to dine with
+Andrew's father and mother. In the evening the new pair went out for a
+walk in the old fields.
+
+"It _seems_, Dawtie, as if God was here!" said Andrew.
+
+"I would fain see him, Andrew! I would rather _you_ went out than God!"
+
+"Suppose he was nowhere, Dawtie?"
+
+"If God werena in _you_, ye wadna be what ye are to yer ignorant Dawtie,
+Andrew! She needs her Father in h'aven sairer nor her Andrew! But I'm
+sayin' things sae true 'at it's jist silly to say them! Eh, it's like
+h'aven itsel' to be oot o' that prison, an' walkin' aboot wi' you! God
+has gien me a' thing!--jist _a' thing_, Andrew!"
+
+"God was wi' ye i' the prison, Dawtie!"
+
+"Ay! But I like better to be wi' Him here!"
+
+"An' ye may be sure He likes better to ha'e ye here!" rejoined Andrew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+
+AGAIN THE GOBLET.
+
+The next day Alexa set Dawtie to search the house yet again for the
+missing goblet.
+
+"It must be somewhere!" she said. "We are beset with an absolute
+contradiction: the thing can't be in the house! and it must be in the
+house!"
+
+"If we do find it," returned Dawtie, "folk'll say them 'at could hide
+could weel seek! I s' luik naegait wantin' you, mem!"
+
+The study was bare of books, and the empty shelves gave no hint of
+concealment They stood in its dreariness looking vaguely round them.
+
+"Did it ever come to ye, mem," said Dawtie, "that a minute or twa passed
+between Mr. Crawford comin' doon the stair wi' you, and me gaein' up to
+the maister? When I gaed intil the room, he lay pantin' i' the bed; but
+as I broodit upo' ilka thing alane i' the prison, he cam afore me, there
+i' the bed, as gien he had gotten oot o' 't, and hidden awa' the cup,
+and was jist gotten intil't again, the same moment I cam in."
+
+"Dying people will do strange things!" rejoined her mistress. "But it
+brings us no nearer the cup!"
+
+"The surer we are, the better we'll seek!" said Dawtie.
+
+They began, and went over the room thoroughly--looking everywhere they
+could think of. They had all but given it up to go on elsewhere, when
+Dawtie, standing again in the middle and looking about in a sort of
+unconscious hopelessness, found her eyes on the mantel-shelf, and went
+and laid her hand upon it. It was of wood, and she fancied it a little
+loose, but she could not move it.
+
+"When Andrew comes we'll get him to examine it!" said Alexa.
+
+He came in the evening, and Alexa told him what they had been doing. She
+begged him to get tools, and see whether there was not a space under the
+mantel-shelf. But Andrew, accustomed to ponder contrivances with Sandy,
+would have a good look at it first He came presently upon a clever
+little spring, pressing which he could lift the shelf: there under it,
+sure enough, in rich response to the candle he held, flashed the gems of
+the curiously wrought chalice of gold! Alexa gave a cry, Andrew drew a
+deep breath, Dawtie laughed like a child. How they gazed on it, passed
+it from one to the other, pored over the gems, and over the raised work
+that inclosed them, I need not tell. They began to talk about what was
+to be done with it.
+
+"We will send it to the earl!" said Alexa.
+
+"No," said Andrew; "that would be to make ourselves judges in the case!
+Your father must have paid money for it; he gave it to Mr. Crawford, and
+Mr. Crawford must not be robbed!"
+
+"Stop, Andrew!" said Alexa. "Everything in the next room was left to my
+cousin, with the library in this; whatever else was left him was
+individually described. The cup was not in the next room, and was not
+mentioned. Providence has left us to do with it as we may judge right. I
+think it ought to be taken to Borland Hall--and by Dawtie."
+
+"Well! She will mention that your father bought it?"
+
+"I will not take a shilling for it!"
+
+"Is not that because you are not quite sure you have the right to
+dispose of it?"
+
+"I would not take the price of it if my father had left the cup
+expressly to me!"
+
+"Had he done so, you would have a right to what he paid for it. To give
+the earl the choice of securing it, would be a service rendered him. If
+he were too poor to buy it, the thing would have to be considered."
+
+"Nothing could make me touch money for it. George would never doubt we
+had concealed it in order to trick him out of it!"
+
+"He will think so all the same. It will satisfy him, and not a few
+beside, that Dawtie ought to have been convicted. The thing is certainly
+Mr. Crawford's--that is, his as not yours. Your father undoubtedly meant
+him to have the cup; and God would not have you, even to serve the
+right, take advantage of an accident. Whatever ought to be done with the
+cup, Mr. Crawford ought to do it; it is his business to do right in
+regard to it; and whatever advantage may be gained by doing right, Mr.
+Crawford ought to have the chance of gaining it. Would you deprive him
+of the opportunity, to which at least he has a right, of doing justice,
+and delivering his soul?"
+
+"You would have us tell the earl that his cup is found, but Mr. Crawford
+claims it?" said Alexa.
+
+"Andrew would have us take it to Mr. Crawford," said Dawtie, "and tell
+him that the earl has a claim to it."
+
+"Tell him also," said Andrew, "where it was found, showing he has no
+_legal_ right to it; and tell him he has no more moral right to it than
+the laird could give him. Tell him, ma'am," continued Andrew, "that you
+expect him to take it to the earl, that he may buy it if he will; and
+say that if, after a fortnight, you find it is not in the earl's
+possession, you will yourself ascertain from him whether the offer has
+been made him."
+
+"That is just right," said Alexa.
+
+And so the thing was done. The cup is now in the earl's collection, and
+without any further interference on her part.
+
+A few days after she and Dawtie carried the cup to Crawford, a parcel
+arrived at Potlurg, containing a beautiful silver case, and inside the
+case the jeweled watch--with a letter from George, begging Alexa to
+accept his present, and assuring her of his conviction that the moment
+he annoyed her with any further petition, she would return it. He
+expressed his regret that he had brought such suffering upon Dawtie, and
+said he was ready to make whatever amends her husband might think fit.
+
+Alexa accepted the watch, and wore it. She thought her father would like
+her to do so.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+
+THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN.
+
+The friendship of the three was never broken. I will not say that, as
+she lay awake in the dark, the eyes of Alexa never renewed the tears of
+that autumn night on which she turned her back upon the pride of self,
+but her tears were never those of bitterness, of self-scorn, or of
+self-pity.
+
+"If I am to be pitied," she would say to herself, "let the Lord pity me!
+I am not ashamed, and will not be sorry. I have nothing to resent; no
+one has wronged me."
+
+Andrew died in middle age. His wife said the Master wanted him for
+something nobody else could do, or He would not have taken him from her.
+She wept and took comfort, for she lived in expectation.
+
+One night when she and Alexa were sitting together at Potlurg, about a
+month after his burial, speaking of many things with the freedom of a
+long and tried love, Alexa said, after a pause of some duration:
+
+"Were you not very angry with me then, Dawtie?"
+
+"When, ma'am?"
+
+"When Andrew told you."
+
+"Told me what, ma'am? I must be stupid to-night, for I can't think what
+you mean."
+
+"When he told you I wanted him, not knowing he was yours."
+
+"I ken naething o' what ye're mintin' at, mem," persisted Dawtie, in a
+tone of bewilderment.
+
+"Oh! I thought you had no secrets from one another."
+
+"I don't know that we ever had--except things in his books that he said
+were God's secrets, which I should understand some day, for God was
+telling them as fast as He could get his children to understand them."
+
+"I see," sighed Alexa; "you were made for each other. But this is my
+secret, and I have the right to tell it. He kept it for me to tell you.
+I thought all the time you knew it."
+
+"I don't want to know anything Andrew would not tell me."
+
+"He thought it was my secret, you see, not his, and that was why he did
+not tell you."
+
+"Of coarse, ma'am. Andrew always did what was right."
+
+"Well, then, Dawtie--I offered to be his wife if he would have me."
+
+"And what did he say?" asked Dawtie, with the composure of one listening
+to a story learned from a book.
+
+"He told me he couldn't. But I'm not sure what he _said_. The words went
+away."
+
+"When was it he asked you?" said Dawtie, sunk in thought.
+
+"The night but one before the trial," answered Alexa.
+
+"He micht hae ta'en you, then, i'stead o' me--a lady an' a'. Oh, mem! do
+you think he took me 'cause I was in trouble? He micht hae been laird
+himsel'."
+
+"Dawtie! Dawtie!" cried Alexa. "If you think that would have weighed
+with Andrew, I ought to have been his wife, for I know him better than
+you."
+
+Dawtie smiled at that.
+
+"But I do know, mem," she said, "that Andrew was fit to cast the
+lairdship frae him to comfort ony puir lassie. I would ha' lo'ed him a'
+the same."
+
+"As I have done, Dawtie," said Alexa, solemnly. "But he wouldn't have
+thrown _me_ away for you, if he hadn't loved you, Dawtie. Be sure of
+that. He might have made nothing of the lairdship, but he wouldn't have
+made nothing of me."
+
+"That's true, mem. I dinna doobt it."
+
+"I love him still--and you mustn't mind me saying it, Dawtie. There are
+ways of loving that are good, though there be some pain in them. Thank
+God, we have our children to look after. You will let me say _our_
+children, won't you, Dawtie?"
+
+Some thought Alexa hard, some thought her cold, but the few that knew
+her knew she was neither; and some of my readers will grant that such a
+friend as Andrew was better than such a husband as George.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Elect Lady, by George MacDonald
+
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