Alec Forbes of Howglen

"Wad ye like me to sit up wi' ye?" asked Alec. "I cud sleep i' your cheir weel eneuch."

"Na, na. We hae baith need to say oor prayers, and we cudna do that weel thegither. Gang ye awa' to yer bed, and min' yer vow to God and to me. And dinna forget yer prayers, Alec."

Neither of them forgot his prayers. Alec slept soundly—Mr Cupples not at all.

"I think," he said, when Alec appeared in the morning, "I winna tak sic a hardship upo' me anither nicht. Jist open the cat's door and fling the bottle into somebody's yard. I houp it winna cut onybody's feet."

Alec flew to the cupboard, and dragged out the demon.

"Noo," said Mr Cupples, "open the twa doors wide, and fling 't wi' a birr, that I may hear its last speech and dyin' declaration."

Alec did as he was desired, and the bottle fell on the stones of a little court. The clash rose to the ears of Mr Cupples.

"Thank God!" he said with a sigh.—"Alec, no man that hasna gane throu the same, can tell what I hae gane throu this past nicht, wi' that deevil i' the press there cryin' 'Come pree (taste) me! come pree me!' But I heard and hearkened not. And yet whiles i' the nicht, although I'm sure I didna sleep a wink, I thocht I was fumblin' awa' at the lock o' the press an' cudna get it opened. And the press was a coffin set up upo' its en', an' I kent that there was a corp inside it, and yet I tried sair to open't. An' syne again, I thocht it was the gate o' Paradees afore which stud the angel wi' the flamin' sword that turned ilka gait, and wadna lat me in. But I'm some better sin the licht cam, and I wad fain hae a drappy o' that fine caller tipple they ca' watter."

Alec ran down and brought it cold from the pump, saying, as Mr Cupples returned the tumbler with a look of thanks,

"But there's the tappit hen. I doot gin we lea' her i' the press, she'll be wantin' to lay."

"Na, na, nae fear o' that. She's as toom's a cock. Gang and luik. The last drap in her wame flaw oot at the window i' that bottle. Eh! Alec, but I'll hae a sair day, and ye maun be true to me. Gie me my Homer, or I'll never win throu't. An ye may lay John Milton within my rax (reach); for I winna pit my leg oot o' the blankets till ye come hame. Sae ye maunna be langer nor ye can help."

Alec promised, and set off with a light heart.

Beauchamp was at none of the classes. And the blinds of Kate's windows were still drawn down.

For a whole week he came home as early as possible and spent the rest of the day with Mr Cupples. But many dreary hours passed over them both. The suffering of Mr Cupples and the struggle which he had to sustain with the constant craving of his whole being, are perhaps indescribable; but true to his vow and to his friend, he endured manfully. Still it was with a rueful-comical look and a sigh, sometimes, that he would sit down to his tea, remarking,

"Eh, man! this is meeserable stuff -awfu' weyk tipple -a pagan invention a'thegither."

But the tea comforted the poor half-scorched, half-sodden nerves notwithstanding, and by slow degrees they began to gather tone and strength; his appetite improved; and at the end of the week he resumed his duties in the library. And thenceforth, as soon as his classes were over, Alec would go to the library to Mr Cupples, or on other days Mr Cupples would linger near the medical school or hospital, till Alec came out, and then they would go home together. Once home, both found enough to do in getting one of them up to the mark of the approaching examinations.—Two pale-faced creatures they sat there, in Mr Cupples's garret, looking wretched and subdued enough, although occasionally they broke out laughing, as the sparks of life revived and flickered into merriment.

Inquiring after Miss Fraser, Alec learned that she was ill. The maid inquired in return if he knew anything about Mr Beauchamp.

CHAPTER LXXVII

Mr Cupples and Alec were hard at work -the table covered with books and papers; when a knock came to the door -the rarest occurrence in that skyey region -and the landlady ushered in Mrs Forbes.

The two men sprang to their feet, and Mrs Forbes stared with gratified amazement. The place was crowded with signs of intellectual labour, and not even a pack of cards was visible.

"Why didn't you answer my last letter, Alec?" she said.

It had dropped behind some books, and he had never seen it.

"What is the meaning, then, of such reports about you?" she resumed, venturing to put the question in the presence of Mr Cupples in the hope of a corroborated refutation.

Alec looked confused, grew red, and was silent. Mr Cupples took up the reply.

"Ye see, mem, it's a pairt o' the edication o' the human individual, frae the time o' Adam and Eve doonwith, to learn to refuse the evil and chowse the guid. This doesna aye come o' eatin' butter and honey, but whiles o' eatin' aise (ashes) and dirt. Noo, my pupil, here, mem, your son, has eaten that dirt and made that chice. And I'll be caution (security) for him that he'll never mair return to wallow i' that mire. It's three weeks, mem, sin ae drop o' whusky has passed his mou."

"Whisky!" exclaimed the mother. "Alec! Is it possible?"

"Mem, mem! It wad become ye better to fa' doon upo' yer knees and thank the God that's brocht him oot o' a fearfu' pit and oot o' the miry clay and set his feet upon a rock. But the rock's some sma' i' the fit-haud, and ae word micht jist caw him aff o' 't again. Gin ye fa' to upbraidin' o' 'm, ye may gar him clean forget's washin'."

But Mrs Forbes was proud, and did not like interference between her and her son. Had she found things as bad as she had expected, she would have been humble. Now that her fears had abated, her natural pride had returned.

"Take me to your own room, Alec," she said.

"Ay, ay, mem. Tak' him wi' ye. But caw cannie, ye ken, or ye'll gie me a deevil o' a job wi' 'm."

With a smile to Cupples, Alec led the way.

He would have told his mother almost everything if she had been genial.

As she was, he contented himself with a general confession that he had

been behaving very badly, and would have grown ten times worse but for

Mr Cupples, who was the best friend that he had on earth.

"Better than your mother, Alec?" she asked, jealously.

"I was no kith or kin of his, and yet he loved me," said Alec.

"He ought to have behaved more like a gentleman to me."

"Mother, you don't understand Mr Cupples. He's a strange creature. He takes a pride in speaking the broadest Scotch, when he could talk to you in more languages than you ever heard of, if he liked."

"I don't think he's fit company for you anyhow. We'll change the subject, if you please."

So Alec was yet more annoyed, and the intercourse between mother and son was forced and uncomfortable. As soon as she retired to rest, Alec bounded up stairs again.

"Never mind my mother," he cried. "She's a good woman, but she's vexed with me, and lets it out on you."

"Mind her!" answered Mr Cupples; "she's a verra fine woman; and she may say what she likes to me. She'll be a' richt the morn's mornin'. A woman wi' ae son's like a coo wi' ae horn, some kittle (ticklish), ye ken. I cud see in her een haill coal-pits o' affection. She wad dee for ye, afore ye cud say- 'Dinna, mither.'"

Next day they went to call on Professor Fraser. He received them kindly, and thanked Mrs Forbes for her attentions to his niece. But he seemed oppressed and troubled. His niece was far from well, he said -had not left her room for some weeks, and could see no one.

Mrs Forbes associated Alec's conduct with Kate's illness, but said nothing about her suspicions. After one day more, she returned home, reassured by but not satisfied with her visit. She felt that Alec had outgrown his former relation to her, and had a dim perception that her pride had prevented them from entering upon a yet closer relation. It is their own fault when mothers lose by the growth of their children.

CHAPTER LXXVIII

Meantime, Annie was passing through a strange experience. It gave her a dreadful shock to know that such things were reported of her hero, her champion. They could not be true, else Chaos was come again. But when no exultant denial of them arrived from the pen of his mother, although she wrote as she had promised, then she understood by degrees that the youth had erred from the path, and had denied the Lord that bought him. She brooded and fancied and recoiled till the thought of him became so painful that she turned from it, rather than from him, with discomfort amounting almost to disgust. He had been to her the centre of all that was noble and true. And he revelled in company of which she knew nothing except from far-off hints of unapproachable pollution! Her idol all of silver hue was blackened with the breath of sulphur, and the world was overspread with the darkness which radiated from it.

In this mood she went to the week-evening service at Mr Turnbull's chapel. There she sat listless, looking for no help, and caring for none of the hymns or prayers. At length Mr Turnbull began to read the story of the Prodigal Son. And during the reading her distress vanished like snow in the sunshine. For she took for her own the character of the elder brother, prayed for forgiveness, and came away loving Alec Forbes more than ever she had loved him before. If God could love the Prodigal, might she not, ought she not to love him too? -The deepest source of her misery, though she did not know that it was, had been the fading of her love to him.

And as she walked home through the dark, the story grew into other comfort. A prodigal might see the face of God, then! He was no grand monarch, but a homely father. He would receive her one day, and let her look in his face.

Nor did the trouble return any more. From that one moment, no feeling of repugnance ever mingled with her thought of Alec. For such a one as he could not help repenting, she said. He would be sure to rise and go back to his Father. She would not have found it hard to believe even, that, come early, or linger late, no swine-keeping son of the Father will be able to help repenting at last; that no God-born soul will be able to go on trying to satisfy himself with the husks that the swine eat, or to refrain from thinking of his Father's house, and wishing himself within its walls even in the meanest place; or that such a wish is prelude to the best robe and the ring and the fatted calf, when the Father would spend himself in joyous obliteration of his son's past and its misery -having got him back his very own, and better than when he went, because more humble and more loving.