Mary Johnston - Foes

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"I's fearing," said Thomas, "that he's lost the taste o' releegion!"

"Eh," exclaimed Jenny Barrow, "but he's a bonny big man! He came by
yestreen, and I thought, 'For a' there is sae muckle o' ye, ye look as
though ye walked on air!'"

Thomas groaned. "Muckle tae be saved, muckle tae be lost!"

Jarvis Barrow spoke from the head of the table. "If fowk canna talk on
the Sabbath o' spiritual things, maybe they can mak shift to haud the
tongue in their chafts! I wad think that what we saw and heard the
day wad put ye ower the burn frae vain converse!"

Thomas nodded approval.

"Aweel--" began Jenny, but did not find just the words with which to
continue.

Elspeth, turning ever so slightly in her chair, looked farther off to
the hills and summer clouds. A slow wave of color came over her face
and throat. Menie and Merran looked sidelong each at the other, then
their blue eyes fell to their plates. But Willy almost audibly smacked
his lips.

"Gude keep us! the meenister gaed thae sinners their licks!"

"A sair sight, but an eedifying!" said Thomas.

Robin Greenlaw pushed back his chair. He saw the inside of the kirk
again, and two miserable, loutish, lawless lovers standing for public
discipline. His color rose. "Aye, it was a sair sight," he said,
abruptly, made a pause, then went on with the impetuousness of a burn
unlocked from winter ice. "If I should say just what I think, I
suppose, uncle, that I could not come here again! So I'll e'en say
only that I think that was a sair sight and that I felt great shame
and pity for all sinners. So, feeling it for all, I felt it for Mallie
and Jock, standing there an hour, first on one foot and then on the
other, to be gloated at and rebukit, and for the minister doing the
rebuking, and for the kirkful all gloating, and thinking, 'Lord, not
such are we!' and for Robin Greenlaw who often enough himself takes
wildfire for true light! I say I think it was sair sight and sair
doing--"

Barrow's hand came down upon the table. "Robin Greenlaw!"

"You need not thunder at me, sir. I'm done! I did not mean to make
such a clatter, for in this house what clatter makes any difference?
It's the sinner makes the clatter, and it's just promptly sunk and
lost in godliness!"

The old man and the young turned in their chairs, faced each other.
They looked somewhat alike, and in the heart of each was fondness for
the other. Greenlaw, eye to eye with the patriarch, felt his wrath
going.

"Eh, uncle, I did not mean to hurt the Sunday!"

Jarvis Barrow spoke with the look and the weight of a prophet in
Israel. "What is your quarrel about, and for what are ye flyting
against the kirk and the minister and the kirkkeepers? Are ye wanting
that twa sinners, having sinned, should hae their sin for secret and
sweet to their aneselves, gilded and pairfumed and excused and
unnamed? Are ye wanting that nane should know, and the plague should
live without the doctor and without the mark upon the door? Or are ye
thinking that it is nae plague at all, nae sin, and nae blame? Then ye
be atheist, Robin Greenlaw, and ye gae indeed frae my door, and wad
gae were ye na my nephew, but my son!" He gathered force. "Elder of
the kirk, I sit here, and I tell ye that were it my ain flesh and
blood that did evil, my stick and my plaid I wad take and ower the
moor I wad gae to tell manse and parish that Sin, the wolf, had crept
into the fauld! And I wad see thae folly-crammed and sinfu' sauls,
that had let him in and had his bite, set for shame and shawing and
warning and example before the congregation, and I wad say to the
minister, 'Lift voice against them and spare not!' And I wad be there
the day and in my seat, though my heart o' flesh was like to break!"
His hand fell again heavily upon the board. "Sae weak and womanish is
thae time we live in!" He flashed at his great-nephew. "Sae poetical!
It wasna sae when the Malignants drove us and we fled to the hills and
were fed on the muirs with the word of the Lord! It wasna sae in the
time when Gawin Elliot that Glenfernie draws frae was hanged for
gieing us that word! Then gin a sin-blasted ane was found amang us,
his road indeed was shawn him! Aye, were't man or woman! _'For while
they be folded together as thorns, and while they are drunken as
drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry!'_"

He pushed back his heavy chair; he rose from table and went forth,
tall, ancient, gray, armored in belief. They heard him take his Bible
from where it lay, and knew that he was back under the fir-tree,
facing from the house toward moor and hill and mountain.

"Eh-h," groaned Thomas, "the elder is a mighty witness!"

The family at White Farm ate in silence. Elspeth slipped from her
place.

"Where are ye gaeing, hinny?" asked Jenny. "Ye hae eaten naething."

"I've finished," said Elspeth. "I'm going to afternoon kirk, and I'll
be getting ready."

She went into the room that she shared with Gilian and shut the door.
Robin looked after her.

"When is Gilian coming home?"

"Naebody knows. She is sae weel at Aberdeen! They write that she is a
great student and is liked abune a', and they clamor to keep her.--Are
ye gaeing to second kirk, Robin?"

"I do not think so. But I'll walk over the moor with you."

The meal ended. Thomas and Willy went forth to the barn. Menie and
Merran began to clear the table. They were not going to second kirk,
and so the work was left to their hand. Jenny bustled to get on again
her Sunday gear. She would not have missed, for a pretty, afternoon
kirk and all the neighbors who were twice-goers. It was fair and
theater and promenade and kirk to her in one--though of course she
only said "kirk."

They walked over the moor, Jarvis Barrow and Jenny and Robin and
Elspeth. And at a crossing path they came upon a figure seated on a
stone and found it to be that of the laird of Glenfernie.

"Gude day, Glenfernie!"

"Good day, White Farm!"

He joined himself to them. For a moment he and Robin Greenlaw were
together.

"Do you know what I hear them calling you?" quoth the latter. "I hear
them say 'The wandering laird!'"

Alexander smiled. "That's not so bad a name!"

He walked now beside Jarvis Barrow. The old man's stride was hardly
shortened by age. The two kept ahead of the two women, Greenlaw,
Thomas, and the sheep-dog Sandy.

"It's a bonny day, White Farm!"

"Aye, it's bonny eneuch, Glenfernie. Are ye for kirk?"

"Maybe so, maybe not. I take much of my kirk out of doors. Moors make
grand kirks. That has a sound, has it not, of heathenish brass
cymbals?"

"It hae."

"All the same, I honor every kirk that stands sincere."

"Wasna your father sincere? Why gae ye not in his steps?"

"Maybe I do.... Yes, he was sincere. I trust that I am so, too. I
would be."

"Why gae ye not in his steps, then?"

"All buildings are not alike and yet they may be built sincerely."

"Ye're wrong! Ye'll see it one day. Ye'll come round to your father's
steps, only ye'll tread them deeper! Ye've got it in you, to the far
back. I hear good o' ye, and I hear ill o' ye."

"Belike."

"Ye've traveled. See if ye can travel out of the ring of God!"

"What is the ring of God? If it is as large as I think it is," said
Glenfernie, "I'll not travel out of it."

He looked out over moor and moss. There breathed about him something
that gave the old man wonder. "Hae ye gold-mines and jewels,
Glenfernie? Hae the King made ye Minister?"

The wandering laird laughed. "Better than that, White Farm, better
than that!" He was tempted then and there to say: "I love your
granddaughter Elspeth. I love Elspeth!" It was his intention to say
something like this as soon as might be to White Farm. "I love Elspeth
and Elspeth loves me. So we would marry, White Farm, and she be lady
beside the laird at Glenfernie." But he could not say it yet, because
he did not know if Elspeth loved him. He was in a condition of hope,
but very humbly so, far from assurance. He never did Elspeth the
indignity of thinking that a lesser thing than love might lead her to
Glenfernie House. If she came she would come because she loved--not
else.

They left the moor, passed through the hollow of the stream and by the
mill, and began to climb the village street. Folk looked out of door
or window upon them; kirk-goers astir, dressed in their best, with
regulated step and mouth and eyes set aright, gave the correct
greeting, neither more nor less. If the afternoon breeze, if a little
runlet of water going down the street, chose to murmur: "The laird is
thick with White Farm! What makes the laird so thick with White Farm?"
that was breeze or runlet's doing.

They passed the bare, gaunt manse and came to the kirkyard with the
dark, low stones over the generations dead. But the grass was vivid,
and the daisies bloomed, and even the yew-trees had some kind of
peacock sheen, while the sky overhead burnt essential sapphire. Even
the white of the lark held a friendly tinge as of rose petals mixed
somehow with it. And the bell that was ending its ringing, if it was
solemn, was also silver-sweet. Glenfernie determined that he would go
to church. He entered with the White Farm folk and he sat with them,
leaving the laird's high-walled, curtained pew without human tenancy.
Mrs. Grizel came but to morning sermon. Alice was with a kinswoman of
rank in a great house near Edinburgh, submitting, not without
enjoyment, to certain fine filings and polishings and lacquerings and
contacts. Jamie, who would be a soldier and fight the French, had his
commission and was gone this past week to Carlisle, to his regiment.
English Strickland was yet at Glenfernie House. Between him and the
laird held much liking and respect. Tutor no longer, he stayed on as
secretary and right-hand man. But Strickland was not at church.

The white cavern, bare and chill, with small, deep windows looking out
upon the hills of June, was but sparely set out with folk. Afternoon
was not morning. Nor was there again the disciplinary vision of the
forenoon. The sinners were not set the second time for a gazing-stock.
It was just usual afternoon kirk. The prayer was made, the psalm was
sung, Mr. M'Nab preached a strong if wintry sermon. Jarvis Barrow,
white-headed, strong-featured, intent, sat as in some tower over
against Jerusalem, considering the foes that beset her. Beside him sat
his daughter Jenny, in striped petticoat and plain overgown, blue
kerchief, and hat of straw. Next to Jenny was Elspeth in a dim-green
stuff, thin, besprent with small flowers, a fine white kerchief, and a
wider straw hat. Robin Greenlaw sat beside Elspeth, and the laird by
Greenlaw. Half the congregation thought with variations:

"Wha ever heard of the laird's not being in his ain place? He and
White Farm and Littlefarm maun be well acquaint'! He's foreign,
amaist, and gangs his ain gait!"

Glenfernie, who had broken the conventions, sat in a profound
carelessness of that. The kirk was not gray to him to-day, though he
had thought it so on other days, nor bare, nor chill. June was
without, but June was more within. He also prayed, though his
unuttered words ran in and out between the minister's uttered ones.
Under the wintry sermon he built a dream and it glowed like jewels. At
the psalm, standing, he heard Elspeth's clear voice praising God, and
his heart lifted on that beam of song until it was as though it came
to Heaven.

"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place
In generations all.
Before thou ever hadst brought forth
The mountains great or small,
Ere ever thou hadst formed the earth
And all the world abroad,
Ev'n thou from everlasting art
To everlasting God."

"Love, love, love!" cried Glenfernie's heart. His nature did with
might what its hand found to do, and now, having turned to love
between man and woman, it loved with a huge, deep, pulsing, world-old
strength. He heard Elspeth, he felt Elspeth only; he but wished to
blend with her and go on with her forever from the heaven to heaven
which, blended so, they would make.

"... As with an overflowing flood
Thou carriest them away;
They like a sleep are, like the grass
That grows at morn are they.
At morn it flourishes and grows,
Cut down at ev'n doth fade--"

"Not grass of the field, O Lord," cried Glenfernie's heart, "but the
forest of oaks, but the stars that hold for aye, one to the other--"

CHAPTER XI

The glen was dressed in June, at its height of green movement and
song. Alexander and Elspeth walked there and turned aside through a
miniature pass down which flowed a stream in miniature to join the
larger flood. This cleft led them to a green hollow masked by the main
wall of the glen, a fairy place, hidden and lone. Seven times had the
two been in company since that morning of the flower-sprinkled cape
and the thorn-tree. First stood a chance meeting upon the moor,
Elspeth walking from the village with a basket upon her arm and the
laird riding home after business in the nearest considerable town. He
dismounted; he walked beside her to the stepping-stones before the
farm. The second time he went to White Farm, and she and Jenny, with
Merran to help, were laying linen to bleach upon the sun-washed
hillside. He had stayed an hour, and though he was not alone with her,
yet he might look at her, listen to her. She was not a chatterer; she
worked or stood, almost as silent as a master painter's subtle picture
stepped out of its frame, or as Pygmalion's statue-maid, flushing with
life, but as yet tongue-holden. Yet she said certain things, and they
were to him all music and wit. The third time had been by the
wishing-green. That was but for a moment, but he counted it great
gain.

"Here," she said, "was where we danced! Mr. Ian Rullock and you and
Robin and the rest of us. Don't you remember? It was evening and there
was a fleet of gold clouds in the sky. It is so near the house. I walk
here when I have a glint of time."

The fourth time, riding Black Alan, he had stopped at the door and
talked with Jarvis Barrow. He was thirsty and had asked for water, and
Jenny had called, "Elspeth, bring the laird a cup frae the well!" She
had brought it, and, taking it from her, all the romance of the world
had seemed to him to close them round, to bear them to some great and
fair and deep and passionate place. The fifth time had been the day
when he went to kirk with White Farm and listened to her voice in the
psalm. The sixth time had been again upon the moor. The seventh time
was this. He had come down through the glen as he had done before. He
had no reason to suppose that this day more than another he would find
her, but there, half a mile from White Farm, he came upon her,
standing, watching a lintwhite's nest. They walked together, and when
that little, right-angled, infant fellow of the glen opened to them
they turned and followed its bright rivulet to the green hidden
hollow.

The earth lay warm and dry, clad with short turf. They sat down
beneath an oak-tree. None would come this way; they had to themselves
a bright span of time and place. Elspeth looked at him with brown,
friendly eyes. Each time she met him her eyes grew more kind; more and
more she liked the laird. Something fluttered in her nature; like a
bird in a room with many windows and all but one closed, it turned now
this way, now that, seeking the open lattice. There was the lovely
world--which way to it? And the window that in a dream had seemed to
her to open was mayhap closed, and another that she had not noted
mayhap opening.... But Glenfernie, winged, was in that world, and now
all that he desired was that the bright bird should fly to him there.
But until to-day patience and caution and much humility had kept him
from direct speech. He knew that she had not loved, as he had done, at
once. He had set himself to win her to love him. But so great was his
passion that now he thought:

"Surely not one, but two as one, make this terrible and happy
furnace!" He thought, "I will speak now," and then delayed over the
words.

"This is a bonny, wee place!" said Elspeth. "Did you never hear the
old folks tell that your great-grandmother, that was among the
persecuted, loved it? When your father was a laddie they often used to
sit here, the two of them. They were great wanderers together."

"I never heard it," said Alexander. "Almost it seems too bright...."

They sat in silence, but the train of thought started went on with
Glenfernie:

"But perhaps she never went so far as the Kelpie's Pool."

"The Kelpie's Pool!... I do not like that place! Tell me, Glenfernie,
wonders of travel."

"What shall I tell you?"

"Tell me of the East. Tell me what like is the Sea of Galilee."

Glenfernie talked, since Elspeth bade him talk. He talked of what he
had seen and known, and that brought him, with the aid of questions
from the woman listening, to talk of himself. "I had a strange kind of
youth.... So many dim, struggling longings, dreams, aspirings!--but I
think they may be always there with youth."

"Yes, they are," said Elspeth.

"We talked of the Kelpie's Pool. Something like that was the
strangeness with me. Black rifts and whirlpools and dead tarns within
me, opening up now and again, lifted as by a trembling of the earth,
coming up from the past! Angers and broodings, and things seen in
flashes--then all gone as the lightning goes, and the mind does not
hold what was shown.... I became a man and it ceased. Sometimes I know
that in sleep or dream I have been beside a kelpie pool. But I think
the better part of me has drained them where they lay under open sky."
He laughed, put his hands over his face for a moment, then, dropping
them, whistled to the blackbirds aloft in the oak-tree.

"And now?"

"Now there is clean fire in me!" He turned to her; he drew himself
nearer over the sward. "Elspeth, Elspeth, Elspeth! do not tell me that
you do not know that I love you!"

"Love me--love me?" answered Elspeth. She rose from her earthen chair;
she moved as if to leave the place; then she stood still. "Perhaps a
part of me knew and a part did not know.... I will try to be honest,
for you are honest, Glenfernie! Yes, I knew, but I would not let
myself perceive and think and say that I knew.... And now what will I
say?"

"Say that you love me! Say that you love and will marry me!"

"I like you and I trust you, but I feel no more, Glenfernie, I feel no
more!"

"It may grow, Elspeth--"

Elspeth moved to the stem of the oak beneath which they had been
seated. She raised her arm and rested it against the bark, then laid
her forehead upon the warm molded flesh in the blue print sleeve. For
some moments she stayed so, with hidden face, unmoving against the
bole of the tree, like a relief done of old by some wonderful artist.
The laird of Glenfernie, watching her, felt, such was his passion, the
whole of earth and sky, the whole of time, draw to just this point,
hang on just her movement and her word.

"Elspeth!" he cried at last. "Elspeth!"

Elspeth turned, but she stood yet against the tree. Now both arms were
lifted; she had for a moment the appearance of one who hung upon the
tree. Her eyes were wet, tears were upon her cheek. She shook them
off, then left the oak and came a step or two toward him. "There is
something in my brain and heart that tells me what love is. When I
love I shall love hard.... I have had fancies.... But, like yours,
Glenfernie, their times are outgrown and gone by.... It's clear to
try. I like you so much! but I do not love now--and I'll not wed and
come to Glenfernie House until I do."

"'It's clear to try,' you said."

Elspeth looked at him long. "If it is there, even little and far away,
I'll try to bend my steps the way shall bring it nearer. But, oh,
Glenfernie, it may be that there is naught upon the road!"

"Will you journey to look for it? That's all I ask now. Will you
journey to look for it?"

"Yes, I may promise that. And I do not know," said Elspeth,
wonderingly, "what keeps me from thinking I'll meet it." She sat down
among the oak roots. "Let us rest a bit, and say no word, and then go
home."

The sunlight filled the hollow, the wimpling burn took the blue of the
sky, the breeze whispered among the oak leaves. The two sat and gazed
at the day, at the grass, at the little thorn-trees and hazels that
ringed the place around. They sat very still, seeking composure. She
gained it first.

"When will your sister be coming home?"

"It is not settled. Glenfernie House was sad of late years. She ought
to have the life and brightness that she's getting now."

"And will you travel no more?"

He saw as in a lightning glare that she pictured no change for him
beyond such as being laird would make. He was glad when the flash went
and he could forget what it had of destructive and desolating. He
would drag hope down from the sky above the sky of lightnings. He
spoke.

"There were duties now to be taken up. I could not stay away all nor
most nor much of the time. I saw that. But I could study here, and
once in a while run somewhere over the earth.... But now I would stay
in this dale till I die! Unless you were with me--the two of us going
to see the sights of the earth, and then returning home--going and
returning--going and returning--and both a great sweetness--"

"Oh!" breathed Elspeth. She put her hands again over her eyes, and she
saw, unrolling, a great fair life _if_--_if_--She rose to her feet.
"Let us go! It grows late. They'll miss me."

They came into the glen and so went down with the stream to the open
land and to White Farm.

"Where hae you been?" asked Jenny. "Here was father hame frae the
shearing with his eyes blurred, speiring for you to read to him!"

"I was walking by the glen and the laird came down through, so we made
here together. Where is grandfather?"

"He wadna sit waiting. He's gane to walk on the muir. Will ye na bide,
Glenfernie?"

But the laird would not stay. It was wearing toward sunset. Menie,
withindoors, called Jenny. The latter turned away. Glenfernie spoke to
Elspeth.

"If I find your grandfather on the moor I shall speak of this that is
between us. Do not look so troubled! 'If' or 'if not' it is better to
tell. So you will not be plagued. And, anyhow, it is the wise folks'
road."

Back came Jenny. "Has he gane? I had for him a tass of wine and a bit
of cake."

The moor lay like a stiffened billow of the sea, green with purple
glints. The clear western sky was ruddy gold, the sun's great ball
approaching the horizon. But when it dipped the short June night
would know little dark in this northern land. The air struck most
fresh and pure. Glenfernie came presently upon the old farmer, found
him seated upon a bit of bank, his gray plaid about him, his
crook-like stick planted before him, his eyes upon the western sea of
glory. The younger man stopped beside him, settled down upon the bank,
and gazed with the elder into the ocean of colored air.

"Ae gowden floor as though it were glass," said Jarvis Barrow. "Ae
gowden floor and ae river named of Life, passing the greatness of
Orinoco or Amazon. And the tree of life for the healing of the
nations. And a' the trees that ever leafed or flowered, ta'en
together, but ae withered twig to that!"

Glenfernie gazed with him. "I do not doubt that there will come a day
when we'll walk over the plains of the sun--the flesh of our body then
as gauze, moved at will where we please and swift as thought--inner
and outer motion keeping time with the beat and rhythm of that _where
we are_--"

"The young do not speak the auld tongue."

"Tongues alter with the rest."

Silence fell while the sun reddened, going nearer to the mountain
brow. The young man and the old, the farmer and the laird, sat still.
The air struck more freshly, stronger, coming from the sea. Far off a
horn was blown, a dog barked.

"Will ye be hame now for gude, Glenfernie? Lairds should bide in their
ain houses if the land is to have any gude of them."

"I wish to stay, White Farm, the greatest part of the year round. I
want to speak to you very seriously. Think back a moment to my father
and mother, and to my forebears farther back yet. As they had faults,
and yet had a longing to do the right and struggled toward it over
thick and thin, so I believe I may say of myself. That is, I struggle
toward it," said Alexander, "though I'm not so sure of the thick and
thin."

"Your mither wasna your father's kind. She had always her smile to the
side and her japes, and she looked to the warld. Not that she didna
mean to do weel in it! She did. But I couldna just see clear the seal
in her forehead."

"That was because you did not look close enough," said Alexander. "It
was there."

"I didna mind your uphawding your mither. Aweel, what did ye have to
say?"

The laird turned full to him. "White Farm, you were once a young man.
You loved and married. So do I love, so would I marry! The woman I
love does not yet love me, but she has, I think, some liking.--I bide
in hope. I would speak to you about it, as is right."

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