Foes. Mary Johnston

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СКАЧАТЬ grass-grown battle-fields, and ships at sea, storied lands, peoples, individual men and women. He had wayfared long; he must have had many an adventure. He had been from childhood a learner. His touch upon a book spoke of adeptship in that world. … Well, here he was, and what would he do now, when he was laird? Strickland lost himself in speculation. Little or naught had ever been in Alexander's letters about women.

      The white ash fell, the clock ticked, the wind went around the house with a faint, banshee crying. The figure by the fire rested there, silent, still, and brooding. Strickland observed with some wonder its power of long, concentrated thinking. It sat there, not visibly tense, seemingly relaxed, yet as evidently looking into some place of inner motion, wider and swifter than that of the night world about it. Strickland tried to read. The clock hand moved toward midnight.

      The laird spoke from the great bed. "Alexander—"

      "I am here, father." Alexander rose and went to the sick man's side. "You slept finely! And here we have food for you, and drops to give you strength—"

      The laird swallowed the drops and a spoonful or two of broth. "There. Now I want to talk. Aye, I am strong enough. I feel stronger. I am strong. It hurts me more to check me. Is that the wind blowing?"

      "Yes. It is a wild night."

      "It is singing. I could almost pick out the words. Alexander, there's a quarrel I have with Touris of Black Hill. I have no wish to make it up. He did me a wrong and is a sinner in many ways. But his sister is different. If you see her tell her that I aye liked her."

      "Would it make you happier to be reconciled to Mr. Touris?"

      "No, it would not! You were never a canting one, Alexander! Let that be. Anger is anger, and it's weakness to gainsay it! That is," said the laird, "when it's just—and this is just. Alexander, my bonny man—"

      "I'm here, father."

      "I've been lying here, gaeing up and down in my thoughts, a bairn again with my grandmither, gaeing up and down the braes and by the glen. I want to say somewhat to you. When you see an adder set your heel upon it! When a wolf goes by take your firelock and after him! When a denier and a cheat is near you tell the world as much and help to set the snare! Where there are betrayers and persecutors hunt the wild plant shall make a cup like their ain!" He fell to coughing, coughing more and more violently.

      Strickland rose and came to the bedside, and the two watchers gave him water and wine to drink, and would have had him, when the fit was over, cease from all speech. He shook them off.

      "Alexander, ye're like me. Ye're mair like me than any think! Where ye find your Grierson of Lagg, clench with him—clench—Alexander!"

      He coughed, lifting himself in their arms. A blood-vessel broke. Tibbie Ross, answering the calling, hurried in. "Gude with us! it's the end!" Mrs. Grizel came, wrapped in a great flowered bed-gown. In a few minutes all was over. Strickland and Alexander laid him straight that had been the laird.

CHAPTER IX

       Table of Contents

      The month was May. The laird of Glenfernie, who had walked to the Kelpie's Pool, now came down the glen. Mother Binning was yet in her cot, though an older woman now and somewhat broken.

      "Oh aye, my bonny man! All things die and all things live. To and fro gaes the shuttle!"

      Glenfernie sat on the door-stone. She took all the news he could bring, and had her own questions to put.

      "How's the house and all in it?"

      "Well."

      "Ye've got a bonny sister! Whom will she marry? There's Abercrombie and Fleming and Ferguson."

      "I do not know. The one she likes the best."

      "And when will ye be marrying yourself?"

      "I am not going to marry, Mother. I would marry Wisdom, if I could!"

      "Hoot! she stays single! Do ye love the hunt of Wisdom so?"

      "Aye, I do. But it's a long, long chase—and to tell you the truth, at times I think she's just a wraith! And at times I am lazy and would just sit in the sun and be a fool."

      "Like to-day?"

      "Like to-day. And so," said Alexander, rising, "as I feel that way, I'll e'en be going on!"

      "I'm thinking that maist of the wise have inner tokens by which they ken the fule. I was ne'er afraid of folly," said Mother Binning. "It's good growing stuff!"

      Glenfernie laughed and left her and the drone of her wheel. A clucking hen and her brood, the cot and its ash-tree, sank from sight. A little longer and he reached the middle glen where the banks approached and the full stream rushed with a manifold sound. Here was the curtain of brier masking the cave that he had shared with Ian. He drew it aside and entered. So much smaller was the place than it had seemed in boyhood! Twice since they came to be men had he been here with Ian, and they had smiled over their cavern, but felt for it a tenderness. In a corner lay the fagots that, the last time, they had gathered with laughter and left here against outlaws' needs. Ian! He pictured Ian with his soldiers.

      Outside the cavern, the air came about him like a cloud of fragrance. As he went down the glen, into its softer sweeps, this increased, as did the song of birds. The primrose was strewn about in disks of pale gold, the white thorn lifted great bouquets, the bluebell touched the heart. A lark sang in the sky, linnet and cuckoo at hand, in the wood at the top of the glen cooed the doves. The water rippled by the leaning birches, the wild bees went from flower to flower. The sky was all sapphire, the air a perfumed ocean. So beautiful rang the spring that it was like a bell in the heart, in the blood. The laird of Glenfernie, coming to a great natural chair of sun-warmed rock, sat down to listen. All was of a sweetness, poignant, intense. But in the very act of recognizing this, there came upon him an old mood of melancholy, an inner mist and chill, a gray languor and wanting. The very bourgeoning and blossoming about him seemed to draw light from him, not give light. "I brought the Kelpie's Pool back with me," he thought. He shut his eyes, leaning his head against the stone, at last with a sideward movement burying it in his folded arms. "More life—more! What was a great current goes sluggish and landbound. Where again is the open sea—the more—the boundless? Where again—where again?"

      He sat for an hour by the wild, singing stream. It drenched him, the loved place and the sweet season, with its thousand store of beauties. Its infinite number of touches brought at last response. The vague crying and longing of nature hushed before a present lullaby. At last he rose and went on with the calling stream.

      The narrow path, set about with living green, with the spangly flowers, and between the branches fragments of the blue lift as clear as glass, led down the glen, widening now to hill and dale. Softening and widening, the world laughed in May. The stream grew broad and tranquil, with grassy shores overhung by green boughs. Here and there the bank extended into the flood a little grassy cape edged with violets. Alexander, following the spiral of the path, came upon the view of such a spot as this. It lay just before him, a little below his road. The stream washed its fairy beach. From the new grass rose a blooming thorn-tree; beneath this knelt a girl and, resting upon her hands, looked at her face in the water.

      The laird of Glenfernie stood still. A drooping birch СКАЧАТЬ