How could he put all these people in danger? Yet the only other alternative was to confront Morgan’s men, possibly even give himself up to them, or perhaps draw them away from Strathy. That’s what he’d have to do: set up some kind of decoy to lure them out of town. Then if they got him, at least it wouldn’t have to involve his new friends.
Friends! He could hardly believe he’d called them that. He desperately wanted to believe that he didn’t care about what happened to the people in this town. He had lied to them, cheated them, was about to steal from them and put them in grave danger. Yet he still cared about them. Were they indeed his friends? If so, how could he be so dishonest with them?
Evening shadows now darkened the room, but Logan had no heart to light a lamp. He leaned forward on the old pine table, resting his head in his hands.
He did care! It made him cringe to think of any one of them being touched by Morgan’s evil. He hated himself for what he was doing. He was in debt to these folks, just as he was to many others in his life.
He remembered Lady Margaret’s words: I hate to think where I would be if He left me alone!
Was he not only in debt to these people but to God also?
Then as Logan raised his head, his eyes fell upon Digory’s old Bible on the table. Instinctively he touched the worn cover. It reminded him of the promise he made on that flooded road: If we get out of this mess, I might even read that old Bible . . .
He had opened it a time or two. But he had done just what Lady Margaret had said—he was not trying to understand, he was trying to pick it all apart. He was as false in his halfhearted attempt to carry out that vow as he was with everything else. He was doing just what he despised others for doing—trying to use God to get him out of a jam when things were going sour, like some benevolent magistrate in the sky, without getting personally involved, without any relationship with Him as Lady Margaret had said. He had always considered such an attitude hypocrisy, and yet he was guilty of the same thing. Well, neither Lady Margaret’s words nor the earnestness of her voice mattered. He wasn’t going to do what he did when they were out in the flood and go blubbering to God now.
Yet what if she was right? What if he was running from the only person who could help resolve this dilemma and rescue him and his friends from terrible danger? What if all this was happening, as Jesse would no doubt say, just as a way of God’s getting his attention? What if the only way out of his confusion was through the one door he was refusing to open—the door of his own heart?
“Oh, God . . . !” he cried, but nothing else would come. He laid his head softly down on the table, and in the quiet stillness of the evening, Logan Macintyre began weeping tears of bitter remorse.
When he lifted his head a few minutes later, his eyes were red, but he felt no healing balm. His tears had been acid on an open wound, for he knew nothing about him had changed. He was alone and in a despair of suffering, seeing for the first time in his life the sinner he truly was. But he would not give in.
Logan sighed a comfortless sigh. His eyes strayed back to the Bible and he again thought of his uncle. Logan had never before truly envied another man. When he had said that he had been satisfied with his life, on the surface he had been speaking the truth so far as he knew it. Yet now he found himself envying old Digory. Here was a man who had been the picture of simplicity. It was evident in this very room where he had dwelt. Logan could almost feel the impact of his unpretentious life in the soul of the place he had inhabited.
“He loved his horses and his Bible,” Lady Margaret had said.
A man without struggles, without the complications of modern life, without people chasing him, without the sham of a false personality tearing at him—it must have been easy for him to follow his God.
Yet . . . was that true? Is it ever easy to lay one’s life down? Though every man’s sacrifice is different, does not every man truly sacrifice when he lays his self on the altar and chooses to follow the path God has laid out for him? Is it ever easy, even for a man like Digory? Was he not wrapped up in the struggles and heartaches of those he loved? Did his heart not ache for his little Maggie? Did not the decision he had to make about the treasure tear at him, too?
All at once Logan caught an image of the old groom bent over his Bible, agonizing over what to do, forced in the end by his love for the girl and his loyalty to the family he had served to hide a priceless treasure in order to keep them from further heartache, evil, and self-generated suffering.
He loved his horses and his Bible. . . .
Digory had sacrificed at least some of his natural simplicity for those he loved. But Logan knew even in his present confusion that if his life had become too complicated to cope with right now, he had only himself to blame. With a frustrated gesture he shoved Digory’s Bible aside. If peace was to be found there, he deserved none of it. He would never be like Digory. He could never be devoted to others. And he deserved none of Digory’s peace. Fatigue began to wash over him. He rose to his feet and shuffled to the bed where he stretched out, fully clothed, on the straw mattress. His eyes drooped and sleep seemed but a moment away, yet his mind continued to race in confused, anguished disarray.
I deserve no peace, he thought. If he had promised to read the words in that old Book, he had lied.
He was a liar! That was how he lived. He had no horses, no peaceful stable, no Bible. He had nothing—but himself! And a rotten self it was. The old poet, Mac—something, whatever his name was—had been right. Low souls, weak hearts . . . That was certainly him! A bad sea-boat with a wretched crew—none other but himself. He was low, weak, and wretched! A poor, foolish man, made to be free but running from the very freedom Lady Margaret said was the source of Digory’s peace—and her own. He was a fool, but he couldn’t help himself. All he had to keep him going was the hope of a treasure—a dirty, stinking treasure.
Maybe that was what he deserved. He had given his heart to this mammon, so his reward would be the anguish of seeing his lust for riches fulfilled while his soul remained tormented in the hell of his own selfishness. There would be no peace for him, only the suffering of the rich man whose tongue could not be cooled amid the flame. Digory had given up the treasure for love. Now his wretched and selfish descendant would turn his back on love, for the treasure . . . would unearth that which had brought evil . . . and would loose more evil into the world and upon himself.
No horses, no Raven, no Maukin, no peace, no quietness of spirit for the descendant. He, Logan Macintyre, whom no doubt old Digory had prayed for without knowing his name, was about to undo what this man of faith had done—he was about to dig up the pain, the heartache, the self of mammon which Digory had tried so hard to banish from the reach of any hands but Maggie’s.
No horses . . . no Bible . . .
Suddenly Logan jerked out of his groggy, half sleep.
His body trembled from the abrupt awakening from a much needed rest. But words tumbled wildly through his brain . . . it was not the first time he’d dug a large hole. Where had he heard that?
He leaped out of bed. Groping in the darkness, his hands fumbled over the table and fell onto the Bible. He flung it open to the spot where he had replaced the letter after loaning it to Lady Margaret, the very page where it had been hidden by the old groom. Still trembling, now for other reasons, he took the letter out. What had Digory said? It had been a long time since Logan had read it. Groping farther, Logan found the lamp and matches. He lit it. The bright glow pained his eyes momentarily, but he forced them to study Digory’s scrawl.
I hae moved it, Maggie, and hidden it where I pray none will discover . . .
No, thought Logan . . . further . . . where did he move it?
To see ye with auld Raven . . . lonely Braenock . . . the sandy beach . . . I hae put it in a spot I thocht ye loved . . .
There was the mention of Raven again!
. . . that cliff and ye both got stuck . . . sand . . . the other direction . . .
The other direction from the sa
nd! Of course! It had to be Ramsey Head! It was in the other direction from town than the sandy beach. What else could the cliffs mean?
Ye loved that path to the rock bearing yer name.
That’s it! That’s it! cried Logan—the rock bearing your name . . . Ramsey Head! He buried the treasure on Ramsey Head somewhere near, or in, the very graves of the beloved horses. No one but Maggie could know those secrets the two of them shared—the horses, the love for the path, the time she got stuck riding there. He had done it! He had located the treasure! Unconsciously his eyes continued reading, I pray one day ye will read this and return to us . . .
He folded the letter hastily, wanting to hear no more. Not now. Not when he was on the verge of unearthing what might be millions! He would not condemn himself for being the one to keep Digory’s prayer from being answered, for being the one to keep the letter hidden from the one whose eyes it was intended for.
He began pacing the room, a cold sweat breaking out over his body. How could he have known, at that moment, that the last line of the letter was the most important of all, the line he had not allowed himself to read: But ’tis all in oor dear Lord’s hands, and his will be doon. The direction the bad boats of men’s hearts sail is not always dependent upon the temporal plans of their wretched souls, but instead on the direction of the winds of God’s Spirit that blows upon the waters, guiding them toward the harbor their blind eyes cannot see.
Even as his mind was racing with how to carry out the final stage in his long-awaited scheme, Logan found it incongruous that he should discover the location of the treasure just at the moment he had almost grown to detest any further mention of it.
Yet he could not stop himself. He could not leave it buried as Digory had. He was compelled to go on. But another compulsion, one whose promptings he was altogether unfamiliar with, told him to go back to the table and look again, this time at the Bible rather than the letter. Reluctantly, he obeyed. The book was still opened to the page where the letter had rested all those years. Then his eyes fell on something he had not noticed before. The Bible was opened to the sixth chapter of Matthew. He had never paid any attention to that fact before. And there on the yellowed page, seemingly for the first time, yet he knew that could not be the case, he noticed that one certain verse had been underlined. How odd that Digory would mar this book he so loved, that one—and only one—small passage would be so marked. Carefully Logan bent down and read the fine print:
“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Logan snapped the Bible shut. He knew he had not been intended to find peace or comfort from these pages. Digory, a man of peace, had left his final admonition to anyone who would seek that which his letter revealed—one doomed to tear Logan apart.
He turned away from the table and clasped his head between his hands in a fresh turmoil of confusion and indecision. He couldn’t stop now! To do so would mean to relinquish so many other things! Maybe they were things he was not even sure he wanted anymore. And if he had thought deeply about it, he probably would have admitted he loathed them now. His past life was fading into a mist behind him, and with many backward glances of longing he watched all he had once loved retreat from him. And as he looked to the future, he was afraid of the unknown, afraid as Lady Margaret had said, to understand Digory’s God. He was afraid to depend on Another, even though his own attempts to help himself had failed so miserably. He was afraid to go forward, but realized it was almost too late to go back, stuck at a crossroads of life’s journey. He realized, without framing it consciously in his mind, that to repent of his past now would mean a complete changeabout, would mean to turn on the path and begin moving in a whole new direction. But making that turn was something he could not do . . . not alone . . . not yet.
Logan grabbed his heavy coat from the hook behind the door and ran down the steps into the stable.
49
The Turn
The air was oppressively warm and the evening was so still that Logan could hear his heart thudding within his chest. He hardly needed his coat. The wind and chill of the morning had been almost welcome compared to this. It foreboded more ill weather to come, though that fact hardly mattered to Logan at this moment. He would be gone from here before the storm broke. All this mental turmoil would be behind him. He’d be rich. And he’d be gone.
He had descended from his room with a resolute determination. His mind cried out for him to stop, but he refused to listen. From the tool rack he grabbed a shovel, then walked past the stalls of horses. He would not risk the commotion it might cause to take out a mount at this time of night. When he stepped outside, intuitively he clung to the shadows as he crept stealthily along the sides of the buildings. ’Tis only fitting, he mused, that I act the part of the thief for this, my final job at Stonewycke. Looking over his shoulder, he crossed an open space to the point where, he recalled, a breach in the great hedge surrounding the courtyard existed.
In the morning, early, he’d go into town and leave specific instructions with the innkeeper that he had to leave for Aberdeen immediately, and then Edinburgh. He’d say he was expecting friends and they could be directed to follow him. He would give him the names of two hotels in each of the cities. Thus when Morgan’s hoodlums came looking for him, they would follow his trail south and would not have to force any information from anyone. His one final favor to these people would be to avoid a confrontation or bloodshed in Port Strathy. These arrangements done, he would return to Ramsey Head, retrieve the treasure, or as much of it as he could reasonably take with him, and make his way on foot along the coast toward Fraserburg and then possibly Peterhead. He would lay low there for a long while; he’d have left no trail to lead anyone to him, and eventually he’d catch a schooner bound straight through for London.
The face of Allison kept intruding into his mind, but he forced it from him. His plan may have been foolproof. But inside he was miserable. He walked steadily faster, as if tiring his body would keep the voices of conscience and old ladies and old grooms and old poets at bay.
But he could not keep the words and images from that day out. Something had begun to open within him, and now that the door was ajar, a torrent of unwelcome thoughts pressed to find entrance.
“I think you are running from God,” the lady had said.
If she could only see him now! Half walking, half running along the road, shovel in hand, his motives hidden by darkness, on his way to steal that which was rightfully hers. What a picture he made!
Was she right? Was this flight symbolic of his running away from truth . . . running away from God? Was he using the treasure and the supposed threat of Morgan’s thugs as just another excuse not to face up to himself—who he was, what he was doing? Was he trying to bolster his cowardice with noble-sounding gestures, thinking what a brave man he was to save the town from Morgan’s men and put them on his own trail, when in reality he was afraid to stand up to the most basic truth of all—the truth of his own sinfulness, the truth of his need for God? Afraid . . . that was all he was. A coward.
“I knew a man who tried to run from God . . .” Lady Margaret’s words echoed in his mind. “But he knew no peace until the moment he stopped . . .”
What was his life—what had his life always been but a sham? A giant con game played upon no one but himself. What he had taken for contentment had been nothing more than a thick protective wall to enclose his fears and insecurities. He had seen that very thing in Allison and had been quick to identify it. But in himself he had been blind to it—until now. He had been hiding . . . running . . . covering up the truth of his ugly nature.
Did he want to stop running? Did he want to stop the sham, the con? Did he want to break down the walls with which he had been trying to protect his heart?
Logan was physically running now, gripping the shovel so tightly that his hand and arm muscles ached. His whole body was drenched with perspiration, but even he—self-reliant, calm, cocky Logan Macintyre—could not mi
stake the tears streaming down his face for sweat from his forehead. He was crying, and he knew it. Yet somehow in the anguish which precedes new birth, he could not be ashamed. They were tears, if not of comfort, yet of healing, and it felt good to unleash them.
What would it be like, he wondered, just once, to make the kind of selfless sacrifice that his uncle had? After all, Digory MacNab’s blood ran in his veins also. Could it . . . be possible that . . . perhaps he might be able to know the peace and freedom that the old groom must have had? Again the words of the old poem came into his mind, Thou hast to freedom fashioned them indeed. Had he been made for freedom, and refused it all along?
Could he make the necessary sacrifice? Could he lay down his self? Could he give up the treasure?
He would gladly do so to have the joy in his heart that Lady Margaret had. But would he have the courage to face them, to expose himself for what he was, to face their rejection, and possibly prosecution? Would he have the courage to make amends for the life he had lived, to repay those he had swindled? Could he make such a gigantic change?
Gradually Logan’s pace slowed, and he came to a halt. All was still and silent around him. The only sound he could hear was the breathing of his own lungs, and the distant call of the sea where he was headed. Silent tears of decision continued to flow.
He could go on like this all the rest of his life—blindly running and hiding, seeking one elusive treasure after another, playing con after con on himself, always trying to convince himself of what Lady Margaret had known was a bold-faced lie from the beginning—that he needed no one else. But now that his eyes were open to his true self, could he continue on in that way? Could he go back to his former life and ignore what his heart was prompting him to do?
Logan sank to his knees. “Oh, God . . . !” he cried, throwing the shovel from him and burying his face in his hands. “God, help me! Forgive me for what I’ve been . . . help me become . . . a true man!” And with the words Logan broke down into an impassioned fit of penitent sobbing.
Stranger at Stonewycke Page 39