by Neil Munro
CHAPTER XXV -- RECONCILIATION
Mungo stood in the dark till the last beat of the horse-hoofs could beheard, and then went in disconsolate and perplexed. He drew the bars asit were upon a dear friend out in the night, and felt as there had gonethe final hope for Doom and its inhabitants.
"An auld done rickle o' a place!" he soliloquised, lifting a candle highthat it might show the shame of the denuded and crumbling walls. "Anauld done rickle: I've seen a better barn i' the Lothians, and fancy metryin' to let on that it's a kind o' Edinbro'! Sirs! sirs! 'If ye cannahae the puddin' be contented wi' the bree,' Annapla's aye sayin', buthere there's neither bree nor puddin'. To think that a' my traisonagainst the master i' the interest o' his dochter and himsel' shouldcome to naethin', and that Sim MacTaggart should be sent awa' wi' a fleain his lug, a' for the tirravee o' a lassie that canna' value aguid chance when it offers! I wonder what ails her, if it's no' thatmon-sher's ta'en her fancy! Women are a' like weans; they never see thecrack in an auld toy till some ane shows them a new ane. Weel! as sureas death I wash my haun's o' the hale affair. She's daft; clean daft,puir dear! If she kent whit I ken, she micht hae some excuse, but I tookguid care o' that. I doot yon's the end o' a very promisin' match, andthe man, though he mayna' think it, has his merchin' orders."
The brief bow-legged figure rolled along the lobby, pshawing withvexation, and in a little, Doom, to all appearance, was a castle darkand desolate.
Yet not wholly asleep, however dark and silent; for Olivia, too, hadheard the last of the thundering hoofs, had suffered the agony thatcomes from the wrench of a false ideal from the place of its longcherishing.
She came down in the morning a mere wraith of beauty, as it seemed tothe little servitor, shutting her lips hard, but ready to burst into ashower.
"Guid Lord!" thought Mungo, setting the scanty table. "It's clear shehasna steeked an e'e a' nicht, and me sleepin' like a peerie. That's aneo' the advantages o' being ower the uneasy age o' love--and still I'mno' that auld. I wonder if she's rued it the day already."
She smiled upon him bravely, but woe-begone, and could not checka quivering lip, and then she essayed at a song hummed with no badpretence as she cast from the window a glance along the wintry coast,that never changed its aspect though hearts broke. But, as ill-luck hadit, the air was the unfinished melody of Sim's bewitching flageolet.She stopped it ere she had gone farther than a bar or two, and turned tofind Mungo irresolute and disturbed.
"He ga'ed awa'--" began the little man, with the whisper of theconspirator.
"Mungo!" she cried, "you will not say a word of it. It is all bye withme, and what for not with you? I command you to say no more about it, doyou hear?" And her foot beat with an imperiousness almost comical fromone with such a broken countenance.
"It's a gey droll thing--"
"It's a gey hard thing, that is what it is," she interrupted him, "thatyou will not do what I tell you, and say nothing of what I have norelish to hear, and must have black shame to think of. Must I go overall that I have said to you already? It is finished, Mungo; are youlistening? Did he--did he--looked vexed? But it does not matter, it isfinished, and I have been a very foolish girl."
"But that needna' prevent me tellin' ye that the puir man's awa' cleangyte."
She smiled just the ghost of a smile at that, then put her hands uponher ears.
"Oh!" she cried despairingly, "have I not a friend left?"
Mungo sighed and said no more then, but went to Annapla and soughtrelief for his feelings in bilingual wrangling with that dark abigail.At low tide beggars from Glen Croe came to his door with yawning pokesand all their old effrontery: he astounded them by the fiercest ofreceptions, condemned them all eternally for limmers and sorners, lustyrogues and vagabonds.
"Awa'! awa'!" he cried, an implacable face against their whiningprotestations--"Awa', or I'll gie ye the gairde! If I was my uncleErchie, I wad pit an end to your argy-bargying wi' hail frae a gun!" Butto Annapla it was, "Puir deevils, it's gey hard to gie them the back o'the haun' and them sae used to rougher times in Doom. What'll they thinko' us? It's sic a doon-come, but we maun be hainin' seein' Leevie's losther jo, and no ither way clear oot o' the bit. I'm seein' a toom girneland done beef here lang afore next Martinmas."
These plaints were to a woman blissfully beyond comprehending the fullimport of them, for so much was Annapla taken up with her Gift, so mistyand remote the realms of Gaelic dream wherein she moved, that the littleLowland oddity's perturbation was beneath her serious attention.
Olivia had that day perhaps the bitterest of her life. With loveoutside--calling in the evening and fluting in the bower, and ever (asshe thought) occupied with her image even when farther apart--she hadlittle fault to find with the shabby interior of her home. Now that lovewas lost, she sat with her father, oppressed and cold as it had been avault. Even in his preoccupation he could not fail to see how ill sheseemed that morning: it appeared to him that she had the look of amountain birch stricken by the first of wintry weather.
"My dear," he said, with a tenderness that had been some time absentfrom their relations, "you must be taking a change of air. I'm a poorparent not to have seen before how much you need it." He hastened tocorrect what he fancied from her face was a misapprehension. "I amspeaking for your red cheeks, my dear, believe me; I'm wae to see youlike that."
"I will do whatever you wish, father," said Olivia in much agitation.Coerced she was iron, coaxed she was clay. "I have not been a very gooddaughter to you, father; after this I will be trying to be better."
His face reddened; his heart beat at this capitulation of his rebel: herose from his chair and took her into his arms--an odd display for a manso long stone-cold but to his dreams.
"My dear, my dear!" said he, "but in one detail that need never again benamed between us two, you have been the best of girls, and, God knows, Iam not the pattern parent!"
Her arm went round his neck, and she wept on his breast.
"Sour and dour--" said he.
"No, no!" she cried.
"And poor to penury."
"All the more need for a loving child. There are only the two of us."
He held her at arm's-length and looked at her wistfully in the wet wanface and saw his wife Christina there. "By heaven!" he thought, "it isno wonder that this man should hunt her."
"You have made me happy this day, Olivia," said he; "at least halfhappy. I dare not mention what more was needed to make me quitecontent."
"You need not," said she. "I know, and that--and that--is over too. I amjust your own Olivia."
"What!" he cried elate; "no more?"
"No more at all."
"Now praise God!" said he. "I have been robbed of Credit and estate, andeven of my name; I have seen king and country foully done by, and blackaffront brought on our people, and still there's something left to livefor."