Winter Evening Tales by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (books to read now TXT) 📖

but men are always better than their theology and Margaret knew from the Scriptures chosen for their household worship that in the depth and stillness of his soul his human fatherhood had anchored fast to the fatherhood of God.

Arcadean winters are long and dreary, but no one need much pity the Arcadeans; they have learned how to make them the very festival of social life. And, in spite of her anxiety about Ronald, Margaret thoroughly enjoyed this one--perhaps the more because Captain Olave Thorkald spent two months of it with them in Kirkwall. There had been a long attachment between the young soldier and Margaret; and having obtained his commission, he had come to ask also for the public recognition of their engagement. Margaret was rarely beautiful and rarely happy, and she carried with a charming and kindly grace the full cup of her felicity. The Arcadeans love to date from a good year, and all her life afterward Margaret reckoned events from this pleasant winter.

Peter Sinclair's house being one of the largest in Kirkwall, was a favorite gathering place, and Peter took his full share in all the home-like, innocent amusements which beguiled the long, dreary nights. No one in Orkney or Zetland could recite Ossian with more passion and tenderness, and he enjoyed his little triumph over the youngsters who emulated him. No one could sing a Scotch song with more humor, and few of the lads and lassies could match Peter in a blithe foursome reel or a rattling strathspey. Some, indeed, thought that good Dr. Ogilvie had a more graceful spring and a longer breath, but Peter always insisted that his inferiority to the minister was a voluntary concession to the Dominie's superior dignity. It was, however, a rivalry that always ended in a firmer grip at parting. These little festivals, in which young and old freely mingled, cultivated to perfection the best and kindest feelings of both classes. Age mellowed to perfect sweetness in the sunshine of youthful gayety, and youth learned from age how at once to be merry and wise.

At length June arrived; and though winter lingered in spates, the song of the skylark and the thrush heralded the spring. When the dream-like voice of the cuckoo should be heard once more, Peter and Margaret had determined to take a long summer trip. They were to go first to Perth, where Captain Thorkald was stationed, and then to Glasgow and see Ronald. But God had planned another journey for Peter, even one to a "land very far off." A disease, to which he had been subject at intervals for many years, suddenly assumed a fatal character and Peter needed no one to tell him that his days were numbered.

He set his house in order, and then, going with Margaret to his summer dwelling, waited quietly. He said little on the subject, and as long as he was able, gave himself up with the delight of a child to watching the few flowers in his garden; but still one solemn, waylaying thought made these few last weeks of life peculiarly hushed and sacred. Ronald had been sent for, and the old man, with the clear prescience that sometimes comes before death, divined much and foresaw much he did not care to speak about--only that in some subtle way he made Margaret perceive that Ronald was to be cared for and watched over, and that to her this charge was committed.

Before the summer was quite over Peter Sinclair went away. In his tarrying by the eternal shore he became, as it were, purified of the body, and one lovely night, when gloaming and dawning mingled, and the lark was thrilling the midnight skies, he heard the Master call him, and promptly answered, "Here am I." Then "Death, with sweet enlargement, did dismiss him hence."

He had been considered a rich man in Orkney, and, therefore, Ronald--who had become accustomed to a Glasgow standard of wealth--was much disappointed. His whole estate was not worth over six thousand pounds; about two thousand pounds of this was in gold, the rest was invested in his houses in Kirkwall, and in a little cottage in Stromness, where Peter's wife had been born. He gave to Ronald L1800, and to Margaret L200 and the life rent of the real property. Ronald had already received L1400, and, therefore, had no cause of complaint, but somehow he felt as if he had been wronged. He was older than his sister, and the son of the house, and use and custom were not in favor of recognizing daughters as having equal rights. But he kept such thoughts to himself, and when he went back to Glasgow took with him solid proof of his sister's devotion.

It was necessary, now, for Margaret to make a great change in her life. She determined to remove to Stromness and occupy the little four-roomed cottage that had been her mother's. It stood close to that of Geordie Twatt, and she felt that in any emergency she was thus sure of one faithful friend. "A lone woman" in Margaret's position has in these days numberless objects of interest of which Margaret never dreamed. She would have thought it a kind of impiety to advise her minister, or meddle in church affairs. These simple parents attended themselves to the spiritual training of their children--there was no necessity for Sunday Schools, and they did not exist. She was not one of those women whom their friends call "beings," and who have deep and mysterious feelings that interpret themselves in poems and thrilling stories. She had no taste for philosophy or history or social science, and had been taught to regard novels as dangerously sinful books.

But no one need imagine that she was either wretched or idle. In the first place, she took life much more calmly and slowly than we do; a very little pleasure or employment went a long way. She read her Bible and helped her old servant Helga to keep the house in order. She had her flowers to care for,--and her brother and lover to write to. She looked after Geordie Twatt's little motherless lads, went to church and to see her friends, and very often had her friends to see her. It happened to be a very stormy winter, and the mails were often delayed for weeks together. This was her only trouble. Ronald's letters were more and more unsatisfactory; he was evidently unhappy and dissatisfied and heartily tired of his new study. Posts were so irregular that often their letters seemed to be playing at cross purposes. She determined as soon as spring opened to go and have a straightforward talk with him.

So the following June Geordie Twatt took her in his boat to Thurso, where Captain Thorkald was waiting for her. They had not met since Peter Sinclair's death, and that event had materially affected their prospects. Before it their marriage had been a possible joy in some far future; now there was no greater claim on her care and love than the captain's, and he urged their early marriage.

Margaret had her two hundred pounds with her, and she promised to buy her "plenishing" during her visit to Glasgow. In those days girls made their own trousseau, sewing into every garment solemn and tender hopes and joys. Margaret thought that proper attention to this dear stitching as well as proper respect for her father's memory, asked of her yet at least another year's delay; and for the present Captain Thorkald thought it best not to urge her further.

Ronald received his sister very joyfully. He had provided lodgings for her with their father's old correspondent, Robert Gorie, a tea merchant in the Cowcaddens. The Cowcaddens was then a very respectable street, and Margaret was quite pleased with her quarters. She was not pleased with Ronald, however. He avowed himself thoroughly disgusted with the law, and declared his intention of forfeiting his fee and joining his friend Walter Cashell in a manufacturing scheme.

Margaret could feel that he was all wrong, but she could not reason about a business of which she knew nothing, and Ronald took his own way. But changing and bettering are two different things, and, though he was always talking of his "good luck" and his "good bargains", Margaret was very uneasy. Perhaps Robert Gorie was partly to blame for this; his pawky face and shrewd little eyes made visible dissents to all such boasts; nor did he scruple to say, "Guid luck needs guid elbowing, Ronald, an' it is at the guid bargains I aye pause an' ponder."

The following winter was a restless, unhappy one; Ronald was either painfully elated or very dull; and, soon after the New Year, Walter Cashell fell into bad health, went to the West Indies, and left Ronald with the whole business to manage. He soon now began to come to his sister, not only for advice, but for money. Margaret believed at first that she was only supplying Walter's sudden loss, but when her cash was all gone, and Ronald urged her to mortgage her rents she resolutely shut her ears to all his plausible promises, and refused to "throw more good money after bad."

It was the first ill-blood between them, and it hurt Margaret sorely. She was glad when the fine weather came, and she could escape to her island home, for Ronald was cool to her, and said cruel things of Captain Thorkald, for whose sake he declared his sister had refused to help him.

One day, at the end of the following August, when most of the towns-people--men and women--had gone to the moss to cut the winter's peat, she saw Geordie Twatt coming toward the house. Something about his appearance troubled her, and she went to the open door and stood waiting for him.

"What is it, Geordie?"

"I am bidden to tell thee, Margaret Sinclair, to be at the Stanes o' Stennis to-night at eleven o'clock."

"Who trysts me there, Geordie, at such an hour?"

"Thy brother; but thou'lt come--yes, thou wilt."

Margaret's very lips turned white as she answered: "I'll be there--see thou art, too."

"Sure as death! If naebody spiers after me, thou needna say I was here at a', thou needna."

Margaret understood the caution, and nodded her head. She could not speak, and all day long she wandered about like a soul in a restless dream.

Fortunately, every one was weary at night, and went early to rest, and she found little difficulty in getting outside the town without notice; and one of the ponies on the common took her speedily across the moor.

Late as it was, twilight lingered over the silent moor, with its old Pictish mounds and burial places, giving them an indescribable aspect of something weird and eerie. No one could have been insensible to the mournful, brooding light and the unearthly stillness, and Margaret was trembling with a supernatural terror as she stood amid the solemn circle of gray stones and looked over the lake of Stennis and the low, brown hills of Harray.

From behind one of these gigantic pillars Ronald came toward her--Ronald, and yet not Ronald. He was dressed as a common sailor, and otherwise shamefully disguised. There was no time to soften things--he told his miserable story in a few plain words:

"His business had become so entangled that he knew not which way to turn, and, sick of the whole affair, he had taken a passage for Australia, and then forged a note on the Western Bank for L900. He had hoped to be far at sea with his ill-gotten money before the fraud was discovered, but suspicion had gathered around him so quickly, that he had not