The Standard Bearer

In a moment she drew it away, glanced at it quickly, and lo! it was stained with a clear and brilliant red.

Then she laughed abruptly, a strange, hollow-sounding little laugh.

“I am glad – glad,” she said. “Ah! this is my warrant for departure. Well do I ken the sign, for I mind when my brother Andrew saw it first. Quintin, dear lad, you will get her yet, and with honour.”

“Come, Jean,” said I, gently as I could, “the air is shrewd. You are ill and weak. Lean on my arm, and I will take you home.”

She looked up at me with dry, brilliant eyes. There was nothing strange about them save that the lids seemed swollen and unnaturally white.

“Quintin,” she made answer, smiling, “it was foolish from the first, was it not, lad o’ my love? Did you ever say a sweet thing to me, like one that comes courting a lass in the gloaming? Say it now to me, will you not? I would like to hear how it would have sounded.”

I was silent. I seemed to have no words to answer her with.

She laughed a little.

“I forgot. Pardon me, Quintin. You are in trouble to-day – deep trouble. I should not add to it. It is I who should say loving things to you. But then – then – you would care more for flouts and anger from her than for all the naked sweetness of poor Jean Gemmell’s heart.”

And the very pitifulness of her voice drew a cry of anger out of my breast. At the first sound of it she stopped and leaned back in my arms to look into my face. Then she put up her hand very gently and patted me tenderly on the cheek like one that comforts a fretful fractious child.

“I vex you,” she said, “you that have overmuch to vex you. But I shall not vex you long. See,” she said, “there is the door. Yonder is my father standing by it. He is looking at us under his hand. There is Jonita, too, and your brother Hob. Shall we go and tell them that this is all a mistake, that there is to be no more between us? – that we are free – free, both of us – you to wed the Lady Mary, I to keep my tryst – to keep my tryst – with Death!”

At the last words her voice sank to a whisper.

Something broke in her throat and seemed to choke her. She fell back in my arms with her kerchief again to her mouth.

They saw us from the door, and Alexander-Jonita came flying towards us like the wind over the short grass of the meadow.

Jean took her kerchief away, without looking at it this time. She lifted her eyes to mine and smiled very sweetly.

“I am glad – glad,” she whispered; “do not be sorry, Quintin. But do just this one thing for me, will you, lad – but only this one thing. Do not tell them. Let us pretend. Would it be wrong, think you, to pretend a little that you love me? You are a minister, and should know. But, if you could – why, it would be so sweet. And then it would not be for long, Quintin.”

She spoke coaxingly, and withal most tenderly.

“Jean, I do love you!” I cried.

And for the first time in my life I meant it. She seemed to be like my sister Anna to me.

By this time, seeing Jonita coming, she had recovered herself somewhat and taken my arm. At my words she pressed it a little, and smiled.

“Oh,” she said, “you need not begin yet. Only before them. I want them to think that you love me a little, you see. Is it not small and foolish of me?”

“But I do – I do truly love you, Jean,” I cried. “Did you ever know me to tell a lie?”

She smiled again and nodded, like one who smiles at a child who has well learned his lesson.

Alexander-Jonita came rushing up.

“Jean, Jean, where have you been? What is the matter?”

“I have been meeting Quintin,” she said, with a bright and heavenly look; “he has been telling me how he loves me.”

CHAPTER XXVI

JEAN GEMMELL’S BARGAIN WITH GOD

Yet more grimly bitter than the day of December the thirtieth fell the night. I wandered by the bank of the river, where the sedges rustled lonely and dry by the marge, whispering and chuckling to each other that a forlorn, broken man was passing by. A “smurr” of rain had begun to fall at the hour of dusk, and the slight ice of the morning had long since broken up. The water lisped and sobbed as the wind of winter lapped at the ripples, and the peat-brew of the hills took its sluggish way to the sea.

Over against me, set on its hill, I saw the lighted windows of the kirk of Crossmichael. Well I knew what that meant. Mine enemies were sitting there in conclave. They would not rise till I was no more minister of the Kirk of Scotland. They would thrust me out, and whither should I go? To what folk could I minister – an it were not, like Alexander-Jonita, to the wild beasts of the hills? A day before I should have been elated at the thought. But now, for the first time, I saw myself unworthy.

Who was I, that thought so highly of myself, that I should appoint me Standard Bearer of the noble banner of the Covenants. A man weak as other men! Nay, infinitely weaker and worse. The meanest hind who worked in the fields to bring home four silver shillings a week to his wife and bairns was better than I.

A Standard Bearer! I laughed now at the thought, and the rushes by the water’s edges chuckled and sneered in answering derision.

A Standard Bearer, God wot! Renegade and traitor, rather; a man who could not keep his plain vows, whose erring and wandering heart went after vanities; one that had broken a maiden’s heart – unwitting and unintending, did he pretend? Faugh! that was what every Lovelace alleged as his excuse.

I had thought myself worthy to do battle for the purity of the Kirk of my fathers. I had pretended that her independence, her position and her power were dearer than life to me. I saw it all now. It was mine own place and position I had been warring for.

Also had I not set myself above my brethren? Had I not said, “Get far from me, for am I not holier than thou?”

And God, who does not pay His wages on Saturday night, had waited. So now He came to me and said, “Who art thou, Quintin MacClellan, that thou shouldst dare to touch the ark of God?”

And as I looked across the dark waters I saw the light burn clearer and clearer in the kirk of Crossmichael. They were lighting more candles that they might see the better to make an end.

“God speed them,” cried I, in the darkness; “they are doing God’s work. For they could do nothing except it were permitted of Him. Shall I step into the boat that rocks and clatters with the little wavelets leaping against its side? Shall I call John the ferryman and go over and make my submission before them all?”

I could tell them what an unworthy, forsworn, ill-hearted man I am.

Thus I stood by the riverside. Almost I had lifted up my voice to cry aloud that I would make this acknowledgment and reparation, when through the darkness I saw a shape approach.

A voice said in my ear, “Come – Jean Gemmell is taken suddenly ill. She would see you at once.”

Then I was aware that this 30th of December was to be my great day of judgment and wrath, when the six vials were to be loosed upon me. I knew that the Lord whose name I had taken in vain was that day to smite me with a great smiting, because, being unworthy, I had put out my hand to stay the ark of the covenant of God.

“Hob,” said I, for it was my brother who had come to summon me, “is she yet alive?”

“Alive!” said he, abruptly. “Why, bless the man, she wants you to marry her.”

“Marry – ” said I, “I am a minister of the kirk. I have ever spoken against irregular marriages. How can I marry without another minister?”

Hob laughed a short laugh. He never thought much of my love-making.

“Better marry than burn!” quoth he, abruptly. “Mr. Hepburn, of Buittle Kirk, is here. He came over to hearten you in the day of your adversity.”

Then I recognised the hand of God in the thing and bowed my head.

So in an aching expectant silence, hearing only a poor divided heart pulse within me, I followed Hob over the moor, and up by the sides of the frozen mosses to the house of Drumglass. He knew the way blindfold, which shows what a wonderful gift he had among the hills. For I myself had gone that way ten times for his once. Yet that night, save for my brother, I had stumbled to my hurt among the crags.

Presently we came to the entering in of the farmyard. Lights were gleaming here and there, and I saw some of the servant men clustered at the stable door.