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

and his hair clipped close to his head.

"Bolt the door again," he said, in his old authoritative way, "and give me something to eat. I am sick with hunger, and cold, and misery of all kinds."

"I'll do all that, Neil, but where hae you been this lang time, and what makes you sae poor, and sae broken down?"

"Get me something to eat, and I will tell you."

So she left him crouching over the fire, with his elbows on his knees, and his face hidden in his hands. And she asked him no more questions, but when he had had a good meal, he said, "You asked where I had been, Christine? I hae been in prison--in the House of Correction. I was put there by that villain Rath, who accused me of obtaining money under false pretenses."

"I feared something of the kind. A man came here a short time before mother died----"

"Mother dead!"

"Ay, going on eight months now."

And he cried out like some hurt animal, and Christine hasted to say, "She left her love and her blessing. At the very last, she spoke o' you, Neil."

"The man you were speaking of, what did he say?"

"He asked me for the particulars o' my loan to you. He pitied me, and said you had a way o' getting money on vera questionable pretenses."

"Well, what then?"

"I said you made no pretenses to me, that you didna even ask me to lend you money, that I offered it to you, and refused a' bond, or acknowledgment, and only bid you pay me when money was easy wi' you. And I took the liberty o' calling him a sneaking scoundrel, and something else I'll not say o'er again. Then I wrote, and told you the entire circumstance, and you never answered my letter."

"I never received it. Rath wanted to leave Scotland, and the case was fairly rushed through. I was stunned. I think I lost my senses. I did get a lawyer, but I am sure Rath bought him. Anyway, I lost the case, and before I realized the situation, I found myself in prison for six months. I was made to work--look at my hands--I had dreadful food, dreadful companions. I was ill all the time. And when at last I was set free, someone had claimed my fine clothing, and left me these shameful rags."

"Oh Neil! dear Neil! Had you no money?"

"My lawyer charged me shamefully--literally robbed me--and I spent a great deal while in prison in getting proper food, and any comfort I could, at any price. After I got free, I was very ill in the hospital, and more went, and I have only enough left to pay my passage to America. I walked most of the way here. I'm a broken, dying man."

"You are naething o' the kind. All men mak' mistakes, a good many hae a stumble on the vera threshold o' life, and they leap to their feet again, and go prosperously ever afterward. You hae made a mistake, you must master it, you hae had a sair stumble, and you are going to leap to your feet, and run the rest o' your life-race to a clean, clear victory. The first thing is your claes. I am going at once to the Domine. You are about his size. I will get a suit, and some clean linen from him."

"Oh Christine, he may tell----"

"The Domine betray you! What are you saying?"

"I can't trust anyone but you."

"But you must."

"Finlay knows my size and measure, exactly."

"Vera well, then go to Finlay."

"How can I go through the town, or even the village, in this dress? You will hae to go for me."

"I will go to the Domine. It is impossible for me to go and buy a man's full suit at Finlay's. He is a great talker. He wad want to ken why and wherefore I was buying a man's suit--you ought to think o' this, Neil. I'll ask Norman to go."

"Norman will hae to tell that silly fool he married."

"Then I had better go to the Domine. He willna cheep o' the matter to anyone. Keep the doors bolted while I am awa', and go to your own old room. It is a' ready for you."

Only half satisfied with these arrangements, he went fretfully to bed, and Christine went as quickly as she could to the manse. The Domine listened to her story with an air of annoyance. "I know Neil's story," he said, "and he has told it as far as his telling goes, as truthfully as I expected. I am not so sure about his need of money, the clothing is different. I will send over what is necessary, and call in the afternoon and see him."

"Dinna be cross wi' the lad, Sir. He is sair broken down," and suddenly Christine covered her face and began to cry with almost a child's complete surrender to circumstances. The Domine soothed her as he would have soothed a child, and she said, "Forgie me, Sir, I had to give way. It is a' by now. I'm not a crying woman, you know that, Sir."

"I do, and I am the more angry at those who compel you to seek the relief of tears. But I'll be as patient as I can with Neil, for your sake, and for his father's and mother's sake."

So Christine returned and Neil was difficult to awaken, but he heard her finally, and opened the door, in a half-asleep condition. "So the Domine refused you?" he said--"I thought he would."

"He did not refuse me. He will send, or bring, what you need, later."

"You should hae brought them with you, Christine. I dislike to be seen in these disreputable rags. You should hae thought o' that."

"I should, but I didna."

Then she cooked dinner, and he sat beside her, and told, and retold the wrongs and sufferings he had innocently endured. It was all Reginald Rath he blamed, and he would not admit that his behavior had been in any way provocative of it. "He was furious because I married his sister, and naturally took the management of her money into my own hands."

"Where are the Raths now?"

"I do not know. Somewhere in California, I suspect."

"Why?"

"My wife has a good deal of real estate there. It was of little value when deeded to her. Its worth has increased enormously. Rath hated the idea of it belonging to me."

"Neil, how does Roberta feel toward you?"

"She was angry as he was at first--but she loved me."

"Why do you not go to her?"

"I do not know where she is."

"Why not go to California?"

"I have not money enough. Whatever set you to writing books, Christine?"

"How do you know I have been writing books?"

"I saw a review of a book by Christine Ruleson. It praised the bit novel a good deal--Did you get much for it?"

"They paid me vera weel."

"How much?"

She hesitated a moment, and then said, "Three hundred and fifty pounds."

"That is a deal of money for a book--I mean a storybook, like a novel. I did not know writing novels paid so well, or I would have chosen it, in place of the law."

"The Domine thinks writing as a profession must choose you, that you cannot choose it."

"The Domine does not know everything. Have the men who bought it paid you yet?"

"The publishers? Yes, they paid upon acceptance."

"How did you learn to write?"

"I never learned. I just wanted to write, and I wrote--something in me wrote. My writing is neither here nor there. Go to your old room, and lie down and sleep. The Domine may think it best for you to go somewhere at once."

So Neil went to his room but he could not sleep, and about four o'clock the Domine called for him. They met very coldly. The Domine had long ago lost all interest in him as a scholar, and he resented the way in which Neil had quietly shuffled off his family, as soon as he supposed he had socially outgrown them. The young man was terribly humiliated by the necessity of appearing in his dirty, beggarly raiment, and the Domine looked at him with a pitying dislike. The physical uncleanliness of Neil was repellent to the spotless purity which was a strong note in the minister's personality. However, he thought of the father and mother of Neil, and the look of aching entreaty in poor Christine's face quite conquered his revulsion, and he said, not unkindly, "I am sorry to see you in such a sad case, Neil. You will find all you need in that parcel; go and dress yourself, and then I shall be waiting for you." He then turned quickly to Christine, and Neil found himself unable to offer any excuse for his appearance.

"Poor Neil!" sighed Christine.

"Yes, indeed, poor Neil," answered the Domine. "What can man do for a fellow creature, who is incapable of being true, and hardly capable of being false?"

"I advised him to go to his wife. He says she loved him once, but turned against him at her brother's request."

"She did, and a wife who cries out has everyone's sympathy."

"She will forgive him--if she loved him."

"She may, I have known women to go on loving and trusting a man found out in fraud--only a woman could do that."

"A man----"

"No!"

"Oh, Domine, for father's sake--you loved father--for his sake, be kind to poor, dispairing Neil."

"Yes, child, 'despairing'--that is, because he knows he is wrong, and is not sorry for his fault. A good man in the presence of any misfortune stands up, feels exalted, and stretches out his arms to the Great Friendship--he never drifts like a dismasted ship."

Here Neil entered the room again, looking very respectable in the new tweed suit which the Domine had brought him. "Does it fit you, Neil?" he asked.

"As if made for me, Sir. I thank you for it."

"It was altered for you. Finlay knew your measure to a quarter of an inch, he said. I told him you were not fit to come."

"Was that prudent, Sir?"

"Yes, for we are going away at once."

"I would like to rest with Christine for a few days."

"How can you think of such a thing? Do you want to ruin your sister as well as yourself? Do you not know that Rath is going to sue you as soon as your first sentence is served, for shortage in his money account? He will keep up this prosecution, if you stay in this country."

"What can I do? What can I do?"

"You must go to the United States, or Argentine, or India, or----"

"I have no money to spend in travel."

"How much have you?"

"Thirty pounds--and a little over."

"H-m-m! I will lend you twenty pounds, if you will repay it."

"Certainly, I will repay it. I will go to New York. I shall have a little left, when I get there, I suppose. I shall have to travel decently."

"You can get a comfortable passage for twelve pounds. With the balance you can make a spoon, or spoil a horn. Many a good man