in his season yields his fruit,And his leaf fadeth never.
And all he doth shall prosper well – ”
The child paused – accomplished the next three lines with prompting, and then made a stop.
“Lilie no mind now – Lilie show you the tree.”
Anne suffered herself to be drawn out – the tree which Lilie fancied must be the one meant in the Psalm, was an oak which stood upon a swelling hillock close by the Oran. When they came near, the child’s wandering attention was caught by some carving on the rude and gnarled trunk.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Anne read it, wonderingly:
Beneath were two longer lines:
“Like autumn leaves upon the forest ways,
The gentle hours fall soft, the brightest days
Fade from our sight.”
and a date. The carvings were near the root, and might have been done by some one sitting on the grassy bank below. Anne had some difficulty in deciphering them, and when she had led her little charge home, returned alone to trace the moss-grown characters again. The date was seventeen years before – Norman R. R. Could it be possible that some other bore that name – or was it indeed a record of some bygone pleasant musing of her unhappy brother’s, before name, and fame, and fortune were lost in that dark crime – before the mark of Cain was sealed upon his brow.
And were there yet greater depths in this calamity than she knew, and more sufferers; the Marion who shared his happier thoughts – who was she? or how had Norman’s blight, so much more dreadful than death, fallen upon her?
The dusky December weeks passed on, and, on the last night of the year, a tall man, closely enveloped in a plaid, walked softly up the dark avenue towards the house of Strathoran. He seemed to know its turns and windings well, as keeping under covert of the thickest trees, he hastily approached the house; – once near it, he crossed the path quickly to gain the obscurity of its shadow, and then walked round it several times without manifesting any desire of entering. It was a very dreary night – the ground was thoroughly soaked with recent rains, and heavy clouds drifted in dark masses over the sky, of whose dull leaden surface, and wading afflicted moon you could see occasional glimpses, as these gloomy hosts of vapors were parted by the wind. A fitful glance of the moon fell now and then upon the stranger’s face. It was pale and resolute, and rigid, like the face of one undergoing some terrible surgical operation, to endure which manfully his every nerve was strained. He paused at last opposite a brilliant window, and retreating backward, raised himself by aid of a tree, so that he could look in. Through the closed curtains he could see a party of gentlemen sitting at their wine – the sound of their laughter, and gay voices, reached him on his watch. With keen eyes he surveyed the unconscious revellers, marked every face, took in, as it seemed, every particular of the scene, and then descending, took his way again through the solitary avenue, and turning as before into a side path, reached the highway unseen. Onward he went, walking very quickly for full two dreary miles, and arrived at last not at any dwelling of man, but at a solitary graveyard, still and solemn, lying upon Oranside, in the midst of which rose the ruined walls of an ancient chapel, moss-grown, and clad with clinging ivy. – The alarm which called forth the parishioners of more southern districts, night after night, to watch their dead, had not reached the distant stillness of Strathoran, and the stranger entered unmolested and unseen. He directed his steps to the chapel, climbed the broken stair, and entered the small unroofed apartment, with its ruined walls, and trailing ivy, and floor of lettered flags, bearing upon them the names of those who slept below – for this was the burial-place of the long-descended Sutherlands of Strathoran. Another uncertain glance of the wan moon directed him to a marble tablet in the wall, by the side of which he stood long in the dreary silence, motionless and still, himself like some dark statue, mocking the dead with empty honor. Hugh Sutherland and Isabel his wife, lay underneath the watcher’s feet; and the son to whom they had left so fair a heritage, and who had visited their grave two twelvemonths since, bearing a name of universal honor, and looking forth upon a smiling future, through natural tears that became him well – stood there now, tearless and stern in the thick gloom of night – a houseless, joyless man.
“I have obeyed,” said Archibald Sutherland, leaning upon the ruined wall. “I have returned to see my father’s house in the hands of an alien to his blood – and now what remains?” His knees were bent upon the stone that covered the dust of father and of mother – his brow pressed to the tablet that chronicled their names; and the ruined man in his extremity, poured out his full heart into the ear of One who heareth always, and never more certainly than when the voice of supplication rises to Him “out of the depths.” “Who shall stand before thee if thou markest iniquity? yet is there forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared, and plenteous redemption.”
Yes, that remained – omnipotent, over all, in His tender mercy, the God whose plentiful redemption encircles with its arms of divine compassion its every returning prodigal – the loving-kindness that turns no supplicant away. The sympathy most wonderful and strange of all, which “touches” – the heart of the Incarnate God with “a fellow-feeling for our infirmities!” – these remained – greater than all sorrows of the earth.
So with less sternness in his pale face, and less despair in his heart, Archibald Sutherland retraced his steps, and turned to the humble fisher’s house far down the Oran, the inhabitants of which had recently come to the district, and knew not either the name or the quality of the stranger whom they had reluctantly agreed to shelter for the night.
He had hovered that same evening in cover of the darkness, in the neighborhood of the Tower – had passed the hospitable walls of Woodsmuir, and looked through the bare trees at Merkland; but drawing back in painful shame, had not dared to enter, or make himself known to any of them all – they all had households, kindred, warm friends about them. He only was alone.
The next night, with his plaid wrapped as closely about him as before, and serving as a disguise, he passed along Oranside in the darkness, turning his steps to the Tower. He could not delay longer – already perhaps in the bitter pain of last night’s trial, he had delayed too long, and in passing those wide-spreading fields and plantations, once his own, but in which now the meanest hind dwelling among them had more share than he, he felt that last night’s trial might be indefinitely prolonged. He came to the Tower at last, and found it also gay and full of light. The hall-door was open, and within stood a knot of servants. The door of Mrs. Euphan Morison’s snug room was ajar, and showed Duncan from Merkland, and Mr. Coulter’s grave man-servant sitting comfortably by the fireside, while the Falcon’s Craig groom, and Mr. Foreman’s lad, and one or two younger attendants, stood among Mrs. Catherine’s maid-servants in the hall listening to the music above.
“Jacky, ye monkey, shut that door,” cried Mrs. Euphan Morison, “Idle hizzies clavering nonsense, and decent folk like to get their death o’ cauld. I wad advise ye to tak hame some o’ that horehound-balsam wi’ ye, Duncan – it’s uncommon guid for hoarseness. I made it with my ain hand.”
Jacky darted forward to do her mother’s bidding; and Archibald felt the girl’s keen eye pierce his disguise in a moment. – She paused, looked at him. “If ye please, will I tell Mrs. Catherine?”
“Yes – but wait, Jacky, let me go up stairs.”
Jacky went gravely forward before him, and drawing his plaid more closely over his face, Archibald followed her unobserved. – The girl led him to a small apartment which opened into that well-remembered drawing-room, and without saying a word, left him there. He sat down and waited. Ah! these gay sounds of mirth
