Chapter Three - The Entrance of Sorrow

by Amelia A. Barr
Edited by Amber Moeller

"Alas! by some degree of woe
We every bliss must gain,
The heart can ne'er transport know
That never feels a pain."

"The primal duties shine aloft like stars."

Perhaps Agnes intended to keep her promise, but they must be very wise and very strong, who can defy surprises that take the heart by storm. One summer night she was in the garden. It had been raining; the rood, the lintels, and the flagged steps were still wet, and the damp misty air was heavy with the scent of flowers. There was a great white rosebush by the stone-wall of the inclosure, and she stood behind it, though a heavy fog had risen from the Esk, and the twilight was fast passing into the dark. She was anxious and expectant, and had come out into the silent place for a few minutes rest.

It had been one of those contrary days when every household event is out of order. The mother and babe were both sick, something was wrong in the byre among the milking cows, the supper was belated, the servants hurried and cross, even Faith was worried and unlike herself. Agnes had felt that for a few moments she must escape the sense of duty, the cry of pain, the hurry of the household work. And if the garden was damp and misty, it was also sweet and quiet, and full of that inexpressible sympathy which makes us feel the friendship of the hills and streams, and the blossoming flowers.

She stood by the rose bush quite still, in a simply receptive mood. Many tangled thread of thought drifted through her mind, and in some slightly conscious way she challenged them, but Roland Graeme was the underlying sentiment that colored all. She knew that the time had arrived for his visit; she wondered what he would do and say; and what her father would do and say, but she did not dare to question her own heart upon the matter.

Suddenly she looked up. A tall figure was coming through the mist and mirk, staight and swiftly toward her. It was too dark to distinguish any peculiar feature, but she knew the poise of the haughty head, and the swing of the rapid tread. Before she could consciously decide on her own movements, she had passed from behind the shadow of the rose bush, Roland had recognized her, and bending across the low wall, had lifted her face to his own, and kissed it.

Then what hurried words of affection followed! What passionate avowals of constancy! What entreaties! What assurances! And yet when all was said, how conscious both were, that love's sweetest meanings are not to be spoken. Roland had been coming direct to Harribee House. He had intended no concealment. Bu Agnes feared her father. She knew that if it came to a question between them she would have to submit. She felt utterly unable to face the moral opposition to her love, and she was quite determined not to give up her lover.

Her disposition precisely suited Roland's views. "I will keep out of sight," he said, "and tomorrow night at Kirtle Bridge, I will be waiting." Then he kissed her again, and stepped back into the misty shadows of Eskside, and so up to the castle.

His visit at this time had been looked forward to very anxiously by the lovers. On it his future depended. He was just of age, and he was aware that he was to receive some small sum of money which had been realized for him by the sale of his father's personal effects. He had no idea as to its amount, but he understood that its receipt would make him the master of his own destiny, and that he need expect no further assistance from his relatives.

He had arrived at Castle Graeme in the afternoon and found his uncle quite prepared to meet him. Their interview was perfectly courteous. If Lord Tilbert had never been affectionate, neither had he no complaint to make when he said "Roland, you are now of age. I claim no further control over you. When your father died, I invested all his personal property in your name and for your benefit. The sum realized was five thousand two hundred pounds. I placed it in the funds, and I have never touched a shilling of it. Your support and education has been ungrudgingly provided for by Miss Graeme and myself, so that the original sum with its accumulated interest, is that your disposal. I advise you to buy a commission in a good marching regiment. But I claim no futher right to interfere in your life. It is now in your own hands."

The words were spoken without apparent feeling of any kind, and with a grave courtesy Lord Graeme knew well how to assume. They impressed the young man with a sense of kindness and gratitude.

"Lord Graeme," he answered, "you have done better for me than many in your place would have done. You are not to blame for the wrong my father did me; and I do not blame you, because you received the advantage of it. Sometimes I have felt that I was an intruder here; but I shall intrude no more, and I ask your pardon for any annoyance I have innocently been the cause of to you."

And Lord Graeme was more moved by the frank speech than he cared to avow; but he said, "Why then, Roland, you are still a Graeme though your ‘scutcheon be barred by others' fault; and look you, I like the brave way in which you take your wrong--and it may be--that it will be righted."

He said the last words looking downward, very slowly, and as if they were reluctantly force from him. "I think your aunt desires to see you before you go away; but you need to not hurry your departure. The red room is still yours."

"It will be better for me to go at once. I have a career to make. I have a friend who will meet me very soon, and we shall return to London together."

"As you will."

To Roland six thousand pounds, more or less, was a large sum of money. He was elated with the prospect of controlling it. And his first thought had been Agnes Harribee. He meant to ask Matthew for his daughter, and he thought the possession of so much money, would remove all the old Covenanter's scruples. But when Agnes made him understand how hopeless the request would be, he was glad to overleap it, and to take the girl he loved, without attempting to satisfy prejudices and ideas with which he had not a particle of sympathy.

And Agnes had the strength which weak women who had arrived at a stubborn point have. She was chided for her long absence, and scarcely heard or heeded. In another day she would have escaped from all the petty trials of her life. It happened to be a very hard day again. In the gray dawn, before she was well awake, she heard her father in the yard; the boys whistling ringing against the upright sickles. It was the first day of harvest, and the light oats trembling on the Esk slopes, were to fall before the reaper.

Some extra hands had been hired for the field work, and there were extra meals to prepare for them—the dew-drink or early glass of beer before going afield, the ten o'clock of bread and bacon; and the bread and cheese for "cheesing time" in mid afternoon. And there had been no extra hands hired for the house work, though the mother was pale and weak from yesterday's suffering, and the babe was cutting his teeth as hardly as very healthy children frequently do.

So it was a hard day and very little rest for any one; besides which the weather was hot and exhausting. The men worked until the dark hour drove them from the field, and Matthew was so weary that he made no attempt to apply the few verses of the psalm he read. So after nine all were asleep but Faith and Agnes, and the fretful babe. Even the mother had fallen into the dead slumber with which nature restores the throbbing nerves. So Faith had brought wee Davie into her own room, and it seemed to Agnes as if the child never would shut his eyes. Thinking of Roland waiting for her on Kirtle Bridge, she grew almost hysterical when she looked at them, wide open as if the hour was noon day.

"Is there naething you can do, to put that bairn to sleep, Faith? I'm maist beside mysel' for an hour's rest. I'll no be fit for a hand's turn the morrow."

"He'll no go to sleep till he's worn himsel' oot. The puir wee laddie has a toothache that would keep men folk waking nae doubt. Tak' your pillow and go and lie down aside Phemie. She'll never heed you."

"Phemie is worse than Davie. She moans and talks and mutters, and has such fearsome dreams, there's no a wink o' sleep where she is."

"Weel then, try the sofa in the best room. Get your first sleep, and ye'll be the better o' it; and then you can mind the bairn, and let me hae an hour or twa afore the day dawn."

No proposal could have suited Agnes better. The latticed window of the best room opened readily by a handle. It was near the ground. Escape that way was easy and noiseless. For the moment she hesitated, then she lifted her pillow.

"And I'll tak the plaid to hap mysel'," she said, "it will be enou' this warm night. Faith, maybe it isna kind to leave you your lane. Davie has been in your arms a' day."

"Dinna think o' that. You are younger than I am, and you need mair sleep; forbye, you were twice to the field today. Nae wonder you are weary."

"You are a kind, kind lassie! Gie me a kiss, Faith."

Oh the years that followed how often Faith thought of the pretty child-like face lifted to her for a moment! How often she reproached herself for the touch of impatience with which she had granted the request. For, somehow, though the words and actions were loving and sweet, there was in Faith's heart a feeling that a little help and patience would have been still more loving and sweet.

But no fear, no presentiment of what the girl was on the point of doing troubled her. She walked mechanically about the room with the child, until suddenly both were so weary and sleepy that she did not remember when they sunk down together upon the bed. It was dawn when she stirred; the half-wakened birds were twittering in the cherry tree that covered that side of the calling of man to another day's labor.

She left the child asleep and went down stairs, but she did not think of Agnes. Even when she remember the girl it was with a kindly pity. "She'll hae the weight o' the running today. I'll let her sleep till Davie wakes."

When Davie awoke she was busy with a pan of milk in the dairy. She put down the horn skimmer and went to the best room. It had an air as empty and desolate as a forsaken nest. There had not been an article disturbed, and the window was wide open. She stood speechless a moment, she could not bear to admit to herself the calamity she feared. Then she thought of her mother.

Before any thing else she felt that she must assure herself of the girl's flight. Cautiously she made inquiries of the servant women and men, but none of them had seen Agness since the previous day. It was quite certain that she was not on the place. Faith let her father eat his breakfast, and give the orders for the day's work, and then she called him into the best room. It was such an unusual proceeding, that he asked querulously: "What are you needing me for, the day, Faith? Is your mother or the little lad waur?"

"It's no them, fayther. It's Agnes."

"What's the matter wi' Agnes?"

"I canna find her high or low, up or down. I'm feared she's gane awa' wi' somebody."

Matthew stared blankly at her a moment, then asked, "Did you see Roland Graeme here aboot, yesterday?"

"I never saw a sight o' him."

"But he was at the castle, and likewise at Mosskirtle. And' the men met him on the hillside. Why dinna you speak?"

"I daurna say what I'm fearing."

"Do you think she has gane wi' him?"

"Ay, I think sae. Oh Agnes! Agnes!"

"If that's your thocht, you'll no dare to be greeting after her. Let her gae. She's a wicked lass, and I'll ware neither tear nor care on her."

But ah what a wretched heart he carried to the harvest field that day! He tried to work in vain. Before noon he was compelled to put down his sickle. The uncertainty made him sick, besides there was a whisper of his trouble among the reapers, and he could not bear the looks of inquiry cast at him. He took a horse and went into Mosskirtle. When near the village he met a group of boys hunting blackberries, and one of them ran to him with a paper.

"I was coming out to Harribee, master, wi' it; but I forgathered wi' Dick Musgrave and the lave, and I forgot a' aboot it, till I saw your braid bonnet at the brig foot."

Matthew heeded not the apology, he was reading the few lines Roland Graeme had written him. Such letters are in spirit all alike. However they may be worded they amount to the same thing--"we wanted our own way and we have taken it," in defiance of every claim of every loving tie, of every duty. As usual also there was a hope of pardon and an offer of any obedience but just the one that included the whole.

The boy had joined his companions again, and Matthew heard their shouts and laughter through his hard mental struggle. A homely commonplace figure he made, sitting motionless on his shaggy pony, within his soul he was doing battle with some of the fiercest griefs and shames that assail humanity.

He thought of his honorable name, and of his spotless kirk record, of the men who would privately rejoice o'er his downcome, of what his neighbors, and his servants, and his friends and enemies, would say. And though he was only a border shepherd, his good name was dearer to him than gold, and these things were of vital importance—besides, he hated the Graemes. The bitterest part of the trial was, that he did not feel as if God had stood by his cause with them. He had been very jealous for the Lord, and for His saints; and the seed of wicked, the very men whom his soul despised, had been permitted to humble him.

He would say nothing about the matter. To his wife he gave Roland's note, but he would not listen either to her entreaties or her laments. Faith was ordered to remove everything out of his sight that could recall a child so selfish and disobedient, or which in any way implied that she had once been a beloved daughter of his household.

Lord Tilbert took the news in a very different fashion. He had stopped at the blacksmith's to have a nail fastened in his horse's shoe, and a foolish fellow told him the story. He felled him to the ground, and then turned to the smith, and asked if it was true.

"True enough, my lord."

"Which daughter was it?"

"The bonnie ane. Maister Roland has aye been rining wild aboot her."

"Agnes Harribee?"

"Just sae."

Then he put down the horse's foot, and Graeme mounted, and galloped away--"like the diel," said the loungers around the anvil.

It was to Terres he went first in his wrath. She listened to his intemperate words with scorn, she mocked at his passion, she irritated him to fury by praising the "do and dare" spirit of Roland who had carried off one of old Harribee's daughters while he, himself, had been hanging around the skirts of the other, like a love-sick schoolboy.

"Upon my word this beardless stripling is a true Graeme," she cried. "I always liked the spirit of the young cock-farthing. I am glad I gave him five hundred pounds."

"Terres, are you mad? Gave him five hundred pounds?"

"I gave it. Why not? The money is my own. A man that can carry off his bride! Indeed I have a great respect for him. I wish I had given him a thousand."

"You are only trying to anger me. When you have exhausted every other human being, you try to torment me."

"Perhaps so; quarreling with you after ordinary people, is like aqua-fortis after brandy. Sometimes I like the aqua-fortis."

"Did you give him five hundred pounds."

"I have said so."

"You have no right to."

"I think we had better not discuss either his or my rights."

"Will you give me five hundred pounds?"

"If you dare run away with Faith Harribee."

"I will do it."

"I defy you. My five hundred is quite safe. Bah! Keep your temper, Tilbert, if you want to keep your good looks. You are positively ugly this morning."

Then he flung himself out of the room with a mouthful of such words as can only be printed with their first and last letters; and Terres met them with a laugh which echoed in his angry heart long after he was out of the reach of her voice.

But most men get more love than they deserve, and when Graeme spoke to his sister in the evening on the same subject, but in a more reasonable manner, he found her just as sympathetic to its mood.

"Don't you think I ought to see Harribee and acquit myself of any blame in Roland's conduct; I feel as if it were my duty, Terres."

"Have you at length made the acquaintance of duty? Why should you see Harribee?"

"The Harribees have been the Graeme's neighbors for nearly a thousand years. Matthew Harribee and I have never been unfriends. All our intercourse has been civil and honorable."

"Depend upon it, he thinks as badly of you as he can do—and I should judge he was able to think very badly indeed of any one not cut on his own pattern. I would not interfere with the old whig. He is sure to regard your sympathy as an impertinence, and answer you according to your folly."

"I don't think so."

"Of course you don't. When a man asks advice he wants, it is not advice he wants, but approbation. Let old Harribee and his troubles alone. Why should you meddle or make in the affairs of a man clearly heart-set against you?"

"Our land and lot has been cast among a dour, stern set. It had been good for the borders if the preachers had never seen them, a sour ill-willy have their own way lot."

"There are many crooked sticks in this world and tempers. When a man is not naturally amiable and conciliating, he ought to be thankful if he can do his quarrelling at home."

Nevertheless, in spite of his sister's advice, when Graeme next met Matthew Harribee he stumbled into the mistake of expressing in a blundering fashion his disapproval of Roland's conduct. Matthew listened to him with a face resentful and dark.

"There's nae need o' words," he said. "If the lass hadna been a wicked lass, she wouldna hae foregathered hersel' wi' ane o' your name and kind. She has gane to her ain. I hae naething further to say anent it."

But Harribee's home was a dismal place during the weeks and months following this event. The name of Agnes had been dropped from the family speech, and the family prayers, but it was not so easy to banish the memory of the girl from the hearts of those who still loved her. One day Faith found her mother in a passion of grief before the big bible.

"See here, Faith!" she sobbed, "by bairn's name has been crossed oot o' The Book! Oh, but your fayther is a hard man! I wonder if God hasna mair pity on us!"

The poor woman sobbed all the night after this discovery. She had been growing daily weaker and weaker and less able to hide emotions which she had hitherto kept between God and her own soul. But she made no complaint, and the household had grown familiar with her pale face, and silence, and weakness. One Sunday she sat in her place at the family evening worship, and Matthew carried her upstairs in his arms.

She never came down them again. When the first snow of the season was whitening the fells and moors, she touched Matthew early one morning and said "wake up, gudeman, and gie me your farewell. I'm going hame! I'm going hame!"

It was a great shock to him. He had not thought of her death. He was almost angry at her eager anticipation of the change. Nor was his grief untinged with remorse. He remembered, when too late, how, in the satisfation of his own anger, he had quite neglected to share her sorrow of her lost daughter.

"You hae dropped my puir Agnes frae your prayers, gudeman," she had said on her last earthly Sabbath, "but I'll soon be whar I can pray for her, e'en on the vera steps o' the altar." And he had seen the the large tears roll down her wan cheeks, and not heeded them. Now God had wiped them away. She would need a comforter no more.

He suffered very much, but it was not Matthew's way to complain of suffering. It was God's will. In the end that always sufficed for him. And there was still the little lad and the farm to live for,--and Faith. Faith was an afterthought, for Faith had never needed thought; she was always the one to take it for others. She had been her mother's right hand and also her father's strength and counselor, although Matthew never thought of her in that light and would have been offended if any one had dared to say so.

But it was Faith's ear the dying mother whispered her last desires. "You'll keep a prayer in your heart for Agnes; and you'll be gude to your fayther, dear, and never let him want any o' his comforts and likings; and Oh, Faith! I'll hae to leave my wee Davie wi' you!"

"You can do it safely, mother. I'll ne'er say a cross word to him. He sall want nae gude thing, nor any bit o' pleasuring I can get for him. Clasp my hand on the promise, mother! Dear mother! Sweet mother! Never fear but Faith will do her duty.

And the dying woman fixed her gaze upon her daughter's brave, true face, and so gazing and smiling, she passed

"Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot Which men call earth,"

into "the palace of eternity."

To be continued...

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