Christine, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr [chromebook ebook reader txt] 📗

very solitary. Jamie ran up from the school at the noon hour, and sometimes he stayed an hour or two with them after the school was closed. Then the Domine came for him, and they all had tea together. But as the evening twilight lengthened, the games in the playground lengthened, and the Domine encouraged the lad in all physical exercises likely to increase his stature and his strength.

Then the herring season came, and the Rulesons had nothing to do with it, and so they gradually lost their long preeminence. Everyone was busy from early to late with his own affairs. And the Rulesons? "Had they not their gentleman son, Neil? And their four lads wearing the Henderson uniform? And the Domine? And the lad Cluny Macpherson? Did he care for any human creature but Christine Ruleson?"

With these sentiments influencing the village society, it was no wonder that Margot complained that her friends had deserted her. She had been the leader of the village women in their protective and social societies, and there was no doubt she had been authoritative, and even at times tyrannical. But Margot did not believe she had ever gone too far. She was sure that her leniency and consideration were her great failing.

So the winter came again, and Christine looked exceedingly weary. While Ruleson lived, Margot had relied on him, she was sure that he would be sufficient, but after his death, she encouraged an unreasonable trial of various highly reputed physicians. They came to her from Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and she believed that every fresh physician was the right one. The expense of this method was far beyond the profit obtained. Yet Christine could not bear to make any protest.

And the weeks went on, and there appeared to be neither profit nor pleasure in them. The Domine watched Christine with wonder, and in the second year of her vigil, with great anxiety. "Christine will break down soon, Margot," he said one day to the sick woman. "Look at the black shadows under her eyes. And her eyes are losing all their beauty, her figure droops, and her walk lags and stumbles. Could you not do with Faith for a few days, and let Christine get away for a change? You'll hae a sick daughter, if you don't do something, and that soon."

"I canna stand Faith Anderson. She's o'er set up wi' hersel'. I am that full o' pain and sorrow that Faith's bouncing happiness is a parfect blow in a body's face."

"The schoolmaster's wife?"

"I'm no a bairn, Domine; and she treats auld and young as if they were bairns. She would want to teach me my alphabet, and my catechism o'er again."

"There's Nannie Brodie. She is a gentle little thing. She will do all Christine does for a few shillings a week."

"What are you thinking of, Domine? I couldna afford a few shillings a week. I hae wonderfu' expenses wi' doctors and medicines, and my purse feels gey light in my hand."

"I see, Margot, that my advice will come to little. Yet consider, Margot, if Christine falls sick, who will nurse her? And what will become o' yourself?"

He went away with the words, and he found Christine sitting on the doorstep, watching the sea, as she used to watch it for her father's boat. She looked tired, but she smiled brightly when he called her name.

"My dear lassie," he said, "you ought to have some new thoughts, since you are not likely to get new scenes. Have you any nice books to read?"

"No, sir. Mither stopped _Chambers Magazine_ and _The Scotsman_, and I ken a' the books we hae, as if they were school books. Some o' them are Neil's old readers."

"You dear, lonely lassie! This day I will send you some grand novels, and some books of travel. Try and lose yourself and your weariness in them."

"O, Sir! If you would do this, I can bear everything! I can do everything!"

"I'll go home this hour, and the books will be here before dark. Get as much fresh air as you can, and fill your mind with fresh pictures, and fresh ideas, and I wouldn't wonder if you win back your spirits, and your beauty. Your mother is a great care, lassie!"

"Ay, Doctor, but she is in God's care. I hae naething to do but help and pleasure her, when she's waking. She sleeps much o' her time now. I think the medicine o' the last doctor frae Aberdeen, is the because o' her sleepiness. I was going to ask you to take a look at it."

He did so, and said in reply, "There's no harm in it, but it would be well enough to give it with a double portion of water."

Then the Domine went away, and Christine did not know that this hour was really the turning point of her life. And it is perhaps well for the majority that this important crisis is seldom recognized on its arrival. There might be interferences, and blunderings of all kinds. But a destiny that is not realized, or meddled with, goes without let or hindrance to its appointed end.

Christine rose with a new strength in her heart and went to her mother. "Come here, dear lass," said Margot. "The Domine was telling me thou art sick wi' the nursing o' me, and that thou must hae a change."

"The Domine had no right to say such a thing. I am quite well, Mither. I should be sick, if I was one mile from you. I have no work and no pleasure away from your side, dear, dear Mither! I am sorry the Domine judged me sae hardly."

"The Domine is an interfering auld man. He is getting outside his pulpit. When I was saying I missed wee Jamie, and I wished him to come mair often to see me, you should hae watched him bridle up. 'James must be more under control,' he said, in a vera pompous manner. I answered, 'The laddie is quite biddable, Doctor,' and he said, 'Mistress, that belongs to his years. He is yet under authority, and I cannot allow him too much freedom.' And the bairn is my ain! My ain grandchild! Too much freedom wi' his sick grandmother! Heard ye ever the like?"

"Weel, Mither, he was right in a way. Jamie has been a bit stiff-necked and self-willed lately."

"There isna a thing wrang wi' the laddie."

"Weel, he behaves better wi' you than wi' any other person. The Domine is making a fine lad o' him."

"He was a' that, before the Domine kent him at a'. I wasna carin' for the reverend this afternoon. I dinna wonder the village women are saying he has his fingers in everyone's pie."

"It is for everyone's good, Mither, if it be true; but you ken fine how little the village say-so can be trusted; and less now, than ever; for since you arena able to sort their clashes, they say what they like."

"Nae doubt o' it, Christine."

"The Domine promised to send me some books to read. You see, Mither, the pain you hae wearies you sae that you sleep a great deal, and I am glad o' it, for the sleep builds up what the pain pulls down, so that you hold up your ain side better than might be."

"That's a plain truth, dearie."

"Then when you sleep, I am lonely, and I get to thinking and worrying anent this and that, and so I look tired when there's naething wrang. But if I had books to read, when I hadna yoursel' to talk wi', I would be gey happy, and maybe full o' wonderfuls to tell you as you lie wakin' and wearyful."

"It is a maybe, and you hae to give maybes a trial."

"You see, Mither, we gave up our _Chambers Magazine_ and _The Scotsman_ when Feyther left us alane."

"It was right to do sae; there was sae many expenses, what wi' the burying, and wi' my sickness, the last item being a constant outgo."

"You must hae the medicines, and we be to gie up all expenses, if so be it was needed for that end."

"Weel, if I was to stay here, and be a troubler much langer, that might be needed, but I hae a few pounds left yet."

"It will never be needed. The children o' the righteous hae a sure claim on the God o' the righteous, and He is bound and ready to answer it. Those were almost the last words Feyther said to me. I was wearying for books, and you see, He has sent them to me, without plack or bawbee."

"Weel, lassie, if books will mak' you happy, I am glad they are coming to you. Whiles you can read a short story out o' _Chambers_ to mysel'. I used to like thae little love tales, when you read one sometimes to us by the fireside. Anyway, they were mair sensible than the village clash-ma-clavers; maist o' which are black, burning lees."

"Dear Mither, we'll hae many a happy hour yet, wi' the tales I shall read to you."

"Nae doubt o' it. They'll all o' them be lees--made up lees--but the lees won't be anent folks we ken, and think weel of, or anent oursel's."

"They won't be anent anybody, Mither. The men who write the stories make up the men and women, and then make up the things they set them to do, and to say. It is all make-believe, ye ken, but many a good lesson is learned by good stories. They can teach, as well as sermons. Folks that won't go and hear a sermon will maybe read a good story."

"You wadna daur to read them in a kirk, for they arena the truth."

"Weel, there are many other things you wouldna care to read in the kirk--a perfectly honest love letter, for instance."

"When did you hear frae Cluny?"

"Yesterday. He is kept vera close to his business, and he is studying navigation, so that helps him to get the long hours in foreign ports over. He's hoping to get a step higher at the New Year, and to be transferred to the Atlantic boats. Then he can perhaps get awa' a little oftener. Mither, I was thinking when you got strong enough, we might move to Glasgow. You would hae a' your lads, but Norman, mair at your hand then."

"Ay, but Norman is worth a' the lave o' them, and beside if I left this dear auld hame, Norman would want to come here, and I couldna thole the thought o' that ill luck. Yet it would be gey hard to refuse him, if he asked me, and harder still to think night and day o' his big, blundering, rough lads, among my flower beds, and destroying everything in baith house and bounds. I couldna think o' it! Your feyther brought me here when the house was naething at a' but a but and a ben. A bed and a table, a few chairs, and a handfu' o' crockery was a' we had in the wide warld--save and forbye, as I hae often told you, my gold wedding ring." And Margot held up her white, shrunken hand, and looked at it with tears streaming down her face. And oh, how tenderly Christine kissed her hand and her face, and said she was right, and she did not wonder she feared Norman's boys. They were a rough-and-tumble lot, but would make fine men, every one o' them being