A Knight of the Nets

"I can, but I'm ashamed to tell you, Christina. You see, after I had shown you the money, I took a fear anent it. I thought maybe you might tell Jamie Logan, and the possibility of this fretted on my mind until it became a sure thing with me. So, being troubled in my heart, I doubtless got up in my sleep and put the box in my oldest and safest hiding-place."

"But why then did you not remember that you had done so?"

"You see, dearie, I hid it in my sleep, so then it was only in my sleep I knew where I had put it. There is two of us, I am thinking, lassie, and the one man does not always tell the other man all he knows. I ought to have trusted you, Christina; but I doubted you, and, as mother says, doubt aye fathers sin or sorrow of some kind or other."

"You might have safely trusted me, Andrew."

"I know now I might. But he is lifeless that is faultless; and the wrong I have done I must put right. I am thinking of Jamie Logan?"

"Poor Jamie! You know now that he never wronged you?"

"I know, and I will let him know as soon as possible. When did you hear from him? And where is he at all?"

"I don't know just where he is. He sailed away yon time; and when he got to New York, he left the ship."

"What for did he do that?"

"O Andrew, I cannot tell. He was angry with me for not coming to Glasgow as I promised him I would."

"You promised him that?"

"Aye, the night you were taken so bad. But how could I leave you in Dead Man's Dale and mother here lone to help you through it? So I wrote and told him I be to see you through your trouble, and he went away from Scotland and said he would never come back again till we found out how sorely all of us had wronged him."

"Don't cry, Christina! I will seek Jamie over the wide world till I find him. I wonder at myself I am shamed of myself. However, will you forgive me for all the sorrow I have brought on you?"

"You were not altogether to blame, Andrew. You were ill to death at the time. Your brain was on fire, poor laddie, and it would be a sin to hold you countable for any word you said or did not say. But if you will seek after Jamie either by letter or your own travel, and say as much to him as you have said to me I may be happy yet, for all that has come and gone."

"What else can I do but seek the lad I have wronged so cruelly? What else can I do for the sister that never deserved ill word or deed from me? No, I cannot rest until I have made the wrong to both of you as far right as sorrow and siller can do."

When they reached the cavern, Andrew would not let Christina enter it with him. He said he knew perfectly well the spot to which he must go, and he would not have her tread again the dangerous road. So Christina sat down on the rocks to wait for him, and the water tinkled beneath her feet, and the sunshine dimpled the water, and the fresh salt wind blew strength and happiness into her heart and hopes. In a short time, the last moment of her anxiety was over, and Andrew came back to her, with the box and its precious contents in his hands. "It is all here!" he said, and his voice had its old tones, for his heart was ringing to the music of its happiness, knowing that the door of fortune was now open to him, and that he could walk up to success, as to a friend, on his own hearthstone.

That afternoon he put the money in Largo bank, and made arrangements for his mother's and sister's comfort for some weeks. "For there is nothing I can do for my own side, until I have found Jamie Logan, and put Christina's and his affairs right," he said. And Janet was of the same opinion.

"You cannot bless yourself, laddie, until you bless others," she said, "and the sooner you go about the business, the better for everybody."

So that night Andrew started for Glasgow, and when he reached that city, he was fortunate enough to find the very ship in which Jamie had sailed away, lying at her dock. The first mate recalled the young man readily.

"The more by token that he had my own name," he said to Andrew. "We are both of us Fife Logans, and I took a liking to the lad, and he told me his trouble."

"About some lost money?" asked Andrew.

"Nay, he said nothing about money. It was some love trouble, I take it. He thought he could better forget the girl if he ran away from his country and his work. He has found out his mistake by this time, no doubt."

"You knew he was going to leave 'The Line' then?"

"Yes, we let him go; and I heard say that he had shipped on an American line, sailing to Cuba, or New Orleans, or somewhere near the equator."

"Well, I shall try and find him."

"I wouldn't, if I was you. He is sure to come back to his home again. He showed me a lock of the lassie's hair. Man! a single strand of it would pull him back to Scotland sooner or later."

"But I have wronged him sorely. I did not mean to wrong him, but that does not alter the case."

"Not a bit. Love sickness is one thing; a wrong against a man's good name or good fortune, is a different matter. I would find him and right him."

"That is what I want to do."

And so when the Circassia sailed out of Greenock for New York, Andrew Binnie sailed in her. "It is not a very convenient journey," he said rather sadly, as he left Scotland behind him, "but wrong has been done, and wrong has no warrant, and I'll never have a good day till I put the wrong right; so the sooner the better, for, as Mother says, 'that which a fool does at the end a wise man does at the beginning.'"

CHAPTER IX

THE RIGHTING OF A WRONG

So Andrew sailed for New York, and life resumed its long forgotten happy tenor in the Binnie cottage. Janet sang about her spotless houseplace, feeling almost as if it was a new gift of God to her; and Christina regarded their small and simple belongings with that tender and excessive affection which we are apt to give to whatever has been all but lost and then unexpectedly recovered. Both women involuntarily showed this feeling in the extra care they took of everything. Never had the floors and chairs and tables been scrubbed and rubbed to such spotless beauty; and every cup and platter and small ornament was washed and dusted with such care as could only spring from heart-felt gratitude in its possession. Naturally they had much spare time, for as Janet said, 'having no man to cook and wash for lifted half the work from their hands,' but they were busy women for all that. Janet began a patch-work quilt of a wonderful design as a wedding present for Christina; and as the whole village contributed "pieces" for its construction, the whole village felt an interest in its progress. It was a delightful excuse for Janet's resumption of her old friendly, gossipy ways; and every afternoon saw her in some crony's house, spreading out her work, and explaining her design, and receiving the praises and sometimes the advice of her acquaintances.

Christina also, quietly but yet hopefully, began again her preparations for her marriage; for Janet laughed at her fears and doubts. "Andrew was sure to find Jamie, and Jamie was sure to be glad to come home again. It stands to reason," she said confidently. "The very sight of Andrew will be a cordial of gladness to him; for he will know, as soon as he sees the face of him, that the brother will mean the sister and the wedding ring. If you get the spindle and distaff ready, my lass, God is sure to send the flax; and by the same token, if you get your plenishing made and marked, and your bride-clothes finished, God will certainly send the husband."

"Jamie said in his last letter—the one in which he bid me farewell—'I will never come back to Scotland.'"

"Toots! Havers! 'I will' is for the Lord God Almighty to say. A sailor-man's 'I will' is just breath, that any wind may blow away. When Andrew gives him the letter you sent, Jamie will not be able to wait for the next boat for Scotland."

"He may have taken a fancy to America and want to stop there."

"What are you talking about, Christina Binnie? There is nothing but scant and want in them foreign countries. Oh! my lass, he will come home, and be glad to come home; and you will have the hank in your own hand. See that you spin it cannily and happily."

"I hope Andrew will not make himself sick again looking for the lost."

"I shall have little pity for him, if he does. I told him to make good days for himself; why not? He is about his duty; the law of kindness is in his heart, and the purpose of putting right what he put wrong is the wind that drives him. Well then, his journey—be it short or long—ought to be a holiday to him, and a body does not deserve a holiday if he cannot take advantage of one. Them were my last words to Andrew."

"Jamie may have seen another lass. I have heard say the lassies in America are gey bonnie."

"I'll just be stepping if you have nothing but frets and fears to say. When things go wrong, it is mostly because folks will have them wrong and no other way."

"In this world, Mother, the giffs and the gaffs—"

"In this world, Christina, the giffs and the gaffs generally balance one another. And if they don't,—mind what I say,—it is because there is a moral defect on the failing side. Oh! but women are flightersome and easy frighted."

"Whyles you have fears yourself, Mother."

"Ay, I am that foolish whyles; but I shall be a sick, weak body, when I can't outmarch the worst of them."

"You are just an oracle, Mother."

"Not I; but if I was a very saint, I would say every morning of my life: 'Now then, Soul, hope for good and have good.' Many a sad heart folks get they have no need to have. Take out your needle and thimble and go to your wedding clothes, lassie; you will need them before the summer is over. You may take my word for that."

"If Jamie should still love me."

"Love you! He will be that far gone in love with you that there will be no help for him but standing up before the minister. That will be seen and heard tell of. Lift your white seam, and be busy at it; there is nothing else to do till tea time, and I am away for an hour or two to Maggie Buchans. Her man went to Edinburgh this morning. What for, I don't know yet, but I'll maybe find out."