Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice

When they met, she faltered some commonplace observation about the night. To her astonishment, Christian Lillie replied at once. It might be that she saw Anne’s agitation – it might be that she also longed to know Norman’s sister. That she knew her to be so, Anne could not doubt: her melancholy contemplation of Merkland – her evident start and surprise, when they formerly met upon the sands, made that certain.

“Yes,” said Christian Lillie, in a voice of singular sadness, “it is a beautiful night.”

The words were of the slightest – the tone and manner, the drawing in of that long breath, spoke powerfully. This, then, was her one pleasure – this gentle air of night was the balm of her wearied spirit.

“The mist is clearing away,” said Anne, tremulously. “Yonder lights on the Fife shore are clear now – do you see them?”

“Ay, I see them,” was the answer. “Cheerful and pleasant they look here. Who knows what weariness and misery – what vain hopes and sick hearts they may be lighting.”

“Let us not think so,” said Anne, gently. “While we do not know that our hopes are vain we still have pleasure in them.”

“I have seen you more than once before,” said Christian Lillie. “You are not, or your face is untrue, one to think of vain pleasure at an after-cost of pain. Hopes! – I knew what they were once – I know now what it is to feel the death of them: what think you of the vain toils that folk undergo for a hope? the struggle and the vigils, and the sickness of its deferring? I see light burning yonder through all the watches of the night – what can it be but the fever of some hope that keeps them always shining? I saw yours in your window last night, when everybody near was at rest but myself. What is it that keeps you wakeful but some hope?”

“You know me then – you know what my hope is?” said Anne, eagerly.

“No,” said Christian. “Tell it not to me. I have that in me that blights hope – and the next thing after a blighted hope, is a broken heart. It is wonderful – God shield you, from the knowledge – how long a mortal body will hold by life after there is a broken heart within it! I think sometimes that it is only us who know how strong life is – not the hopeful and joyous, but us, who are condemned to bear the burden – us, who drag these days out as a slave drags a chain.”

“Do not say so,” said Anne. Her companion spoke with the utmost calmness – there was a blank composure about her, which told more powerfully even than her words, the death of hope. – ”There can be no life, however sorrowful, that has not an aim – an expectation.”

“An aim? – ay, an aim! If you knew what you said you would know what a solemn and sacred thing it is that has stood in my path, these seventeen years, the ending of my travail – an expectation! What think you of looking forward all that time, as your one aim and expectation – almost, God help us, as your hope – for a thing which you knew would rend your very heart, and make your life a desert when it came – what think ye of that? There are more agonies in this world than men dream of in their philosophy.”

“Are we not friends?” said Anne. “Have we not an equal share in a great sorrow that is past – I trust and hope in a great joy that is to come? Will you not take my sympathy? – my assistance?”

Christian Lillie shrank, as Anne thought, from her offered hand.

“An equal share – an equal share. God keep you from that – but it becomes you well: turn round to the light, and let me see your face.”

She laid her hand on Anne’s shoulder, and, turning her round, gazed upon her earnestly.

“Like – and yet unlike,” she murmured. “You are the only child of your mother? she left none but you?”

“Except – ”

“Hush, what would you say?” said Christian, hurriedly. – ”And you would offer me sympathy and help? Alas! that I cannot take it at your, hands. You have opened a fountain in this withered heart, that I thought no hand in this world could touch but one. It is a good deed – you will get a blessing for it – now, fare you well.”

“Shall I not see you again?” said Anne.

Christian hesitated.

“I do not know – why should you? you can get nothing but blight and disappointment from me, and yet – for once – you may come to me at night – not to-morrow night, but the next. I will wait for you at the little gate; and now go home and take rest – is it not enough that one should be constantly watching? Fare you well.”

Before Anne could answer, the tall, dark, gliding figure was away – moving along with noiseless footstep over the sands to the gate of Schole. She proceeded on herself, in wonder and agitation – how shallow was her concern for Norman in comparison with this; how slight her prospect of success when this earnest woman, whose words had such a tone of power in them, even in the deepness of her grief, declared that in her all hope was dead. It was a blow to all her expectations – nevertheless it did not strike her in that light. Her anticipation of the promised interview, her wonder at what had passed in this, obliterated the discouraging impression. She was too deeply interested in what she had seen and heard, to think of the stamp of hopelessness which these despairing words set on her own exertions. That night she transferred her lights early from her little sitting-room to the bed-chamber behind. That was a small matter, if it gave any satisfaction to the melancholy woman, the light from whose high chamber window she could see reflected on the gleaming water, after Miss Crankie’s little household had been long hours at rest.

The next day was a feverish day to Anne, and so was the succeeding one. She took long walks to fill up the tardy time, and made acquaintance with various little sunbrowned rustics, and cottage mothers; but gained from them not the veriest scrap of information about Norman, beyond what she already knew – that he had killed a man, and had been drowned in his flight from justice – that now the property, as they thought, was in the king’s hands, “and him having sae muckle,” as one honest woman suggested, “he didna ken weel what to do wi’t. Walth gars wit wavor – It’s a shame to fash him, honest man, wi’ mair land that he can make ony use o’ – it would have been wiser like to have parted it among the puir folk.”

On the afternoon of the day on which she was to see Christian Lillie again, Anne lost herself in the unknown lanes of Aberford. After long wandering she came to the banks of a little inland water, whose quiet, wooded pathway was a great relief to her, after the dust and heat of the roads. She stayed for a few minutes to rest herself; upon one hand lay a wood stretching darkly down as she fancied to the sea. She was standing on its outskirts where the foliage thinned, yet still was abundant enough to shade and darken the narrow water; a little further on, the opposite bank swelled gently upward in fields, cultivated to the streamlet’s edge – but the side on which she herself stood, was richly wooded along all its course, and matted with a thick undergrowth of climbing plants and shrubs and windsown seedlings. The path wound at some little distance from the waterside through pleasant groups of trees. Anne paused, hesitating and undecided, not knowing which way to turn. A loud and cheerful whistle sounded behind her, and looking back, she saw a ruddy country lad, of some sixteen or seventeen years, trudging blythely along the pathway; she stopped him to ask the way.

“Ye just gang straight forenent ye,” said the lad, “even on, taking the brig at Balwithry, and hauding round by the linn in Mavisshaw. Ye canna weel gang wrang, unless ye take the road that rins along the howe of the brae to the Milton, and it’s fickle to ken which o’ them is the right yin, if ye’re no acquaint.”

“I am quite a stranger,” said Anne.

“I’m gaun to the Milton mysel,” said the youth. “I’ll let ye see the way that far, and then set ye on to the road.”

Anne thanked him, and walked on briskly with her blythe conductor, who stayed his whistling, and dropped a step or two behind, in honor of the lady. He was very loquacious and communicative.

“I’m gaun hame to see my mother. My father was a hind on the Milton farm, and my mother is aye loot keep the house, now that she’s a widow-woman. I’ve been biding wi’ my uncle at Dunbar. He’s a shoemaker, and he wanted to bind me to his trade.”

“And will you like that?” said Anne.

“Eh no – I wadna stand it; I aye made up my mind to be a ploughman like my father before me; sae my uncle spoke for me to the grieve at Fantasie and I’m hired to gang hame at the term. So I cam the noo to see my mother.”

“Have you had a long walk?” said Anne.

“It’s twal mile – it was eleven o’clock when I started – I didna ken what hour it is noo. It should be three by the sun.” Anne consulted her watch; it was just three; the respect of her guide visibly increased – gold watches were notable things in Aberford.

“I thought yince of starting at night. Eh! if I had been passing in the dark, wadna I hae been frighted to see a leddy thonder.”

“Why yonder?” said Anne, “is there anything particular about that place?”

“Eh!” exclaimed the lad, “do ye no ken? there was a man killed at the fit of thon tree.”

Anne started. “Who was he?” she asked.

“I dinna mind his name – it’s lang, lang ago – but he was a gentleman, and my father was yin ’o the witnesses. Maybe ye’ll have seen a muckle house, ower there, a’ disjasket and broken down. George Brock, the grieve lives near the gate o’t – it’s no far off.”

“Yes, I have seen it,” said Anne.

“Weel, the gentleman that killed him lived there – at least a’body said it was him that did it – I have heard my father speak about him mony a time.”

“And what was your father a witness of?” said Anne.

“Oh, he met Redheugh coming out of the wood – only my father aye thought that he bid to be innocent, for he was singing, and smiling, and as blythe as could be.”

“And your father thought him innocent?” said Anne eagerly.

“Ay – at least he thought it was awfu’ funny, if he had killed the man, that he should be looking sae blythe. A’ the folk say there was nae doubt about it, and sae does my mother, but my father was aye in a swither; he thought it couldna be. Here’s the Milton, and ower yonder, ye see, like a white line – yon’s the road – it’s just the stour that makes it white; and if ye turn to the right, and haud even on, ye’ll come to the toun.”

Anne thanked him, and offered some small acknowledgment, with which the lad, though he took it reluctantly, and with many scruples, went away, whistling more blythely than ever. How little did the youthful rustic imagine the comfort and hope and exhilaration which these thoughtless words of his had revived in his chance companion’s heart!

There had been one in this little world, who, in the midst of excitement, and in the face of evidence, and the universal opinion of his fellows, held Norman innocent. Anne thanked God, and took courage – there was yet hope.

She waited nervously for the evening; when the darkness of the full night came stealing on, she glided along the sands to the gate of Schole.

The projecting window was dark; there seemed to be no light in the whole house. She looked over the gate anxiously for Christian – no one was visible – dark ever-green shrubs looking dead and stern among the gay spring verdure, stood out in ghostly dimness along the garden; the house looked even more gloomy and dismal than heretofore, and the night was advancing.

Anne tried the gate; it opened freely. She went lightly along the mossed and neglected path to the principal door. It was evidently unused, and in grim security barred the entrance; she passed the projecting window again, and with some difficulty found a door at the side of the house, at which she knocked lightly.

There was evidently some slight stir within; she thought she could hear a sound as of some one listening. She knocked again – there was no response – she repeated her summons more loudly; there was nothing clandestine in her visit to Christian.