Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 097, January, 1876

VII

Every one who watched the sun rise on New Year's morning, 1875, will bear witness to the beauty of the sight. Snow had been lying all over the country for some time, and a fortnight of frost had made it hard and dry and crisp. The streams must have felt very queer when they were dropping off into the mesmeric trance, and found themselves stopped in the very act of running, their supple limbs growing stiff and heavy and their voices dying in their throats, till they were thrown into a deep sleep, and a strange white, still, glassy beauty stole over them by the magic power of frost. The sun got up rather late, no doubt—between eight and nine o'clock—probably saying to himself, "These people think I have lost my power—that the Ice King has it all his own way. I'll let them see: I'll make his glory pale before mine."

Lady Arthur was standing at her window when she saw him look over the shoulder of a hill and throw a brilliant deep gold light all over the land covered with snow as with a garment, and every minute crystal glittered as if multitudes of little eyes had suddenly opened and were gleaming and winking under his gaze. To say that the bosom of Mother Earth was crusted with diamonds is to give the impression of dullness unless each diamond could be endowed with life and emotion. Then he threw out shaft after shaft of color—scarlet and crimson and blue and amber and green—which gleamed along the heavens, kindling the cold white snow below them into a passion of beauty: the colors floated and changed form, and mingled and died away. Then the sun drew his thick winter clouds about him, disappeared, and was no more seen that day. He had vindicated his majesty.

Lady Arthur thought it was going to be a bright winter day, and at breakfast she proposed a drive to Cockhoolet Castle, an old place within driving distance to which she paid periodical visits: they would take luncheon on the battlements and see all over the country, which must be looking grand in its bridal attire.

John was called in and asked if he did not think it was going to be a fine day. He glanced through the windows at the dark, suspicious-looking clouds and said, "Weel, my leddy, I'll no uphaud it." This was the answer of a courtier and an oracle, not to mention a Scotchman. It did not contradict Lady Arthur, it did not commit himself, and it was cautious.

"I think it will be a fine day of its kind," said the lady, "and we'll drive to Cockhoolet. Have the carriage ready at ten."

"If we dinna wun a' the gate, we can but turn again," John thought as he retired to execute his orders.

"It is not looking so well as it did in the morning," said Miss Adamson as they entered the carriage, "but if we have an adventure we shall be the better for it."

"We shall have no such luck," said Lady Arthur: "what ever happens out of the usual way now? There used to be glorious snowstorms long ago, but the winters have lost their rigor, and there are no such long summer days now as there were when I was young. Neither persons nor things have that spirit in them they used to have;" and she smiled, catching in thought the fact that to the young the world is still as fresh and fair as it has appeared to all the successive generations it has carried on its surface.

"This is a wiselike expedition," said Thomas to John.

"Ay," said John, "I'm mista'en if this is no a day that'll be heard tell o' yet;" and they mounted to their respective places and started.

The sky was very grim and the wind had been gradually rising. The three ladies sat each in her corner, saying little, and feeling that this drive was certainly a means to an end, and not an end in itself. Their pace had not been very quick from the first, but it became gradually slower, and the hard dry snow was drifting past the windows in clouds. At last they came to a stand altogether, and John appeared at the window like a white column and said, "My leddy, we'll hae to stop here."

"Stop! why?"

"Because it's impossible to wun ony farrer."

"Nonsense! There's no such word as impossible."

"The beasts might maybe get through, but they wad leave the carriage ahint them."

"Let me out to look about," said Lady Arthur.

"Ye had better bide where ye are," said John: "there's naething to be seen, and ye wad but get yersel' a' snaw. We might try to gang back the road we cam."

"Decidedly not," said Lady Arthur, whose spirits were rising to the occasion: "we can't be far from Cockhoolet here?"

"Between twa and three mile," said John dryly.

"We'll get out and walk," said her ladyship, looking at the other ladies.

"Wi' the wind in yer teeth, and sinking up to yer cuits at every step? Ye wad either be blawn ower the muir like a feather, or planted amang the snaw like Lot's wife. I might maybe force my way through, but I canna leave the horses," said John.

Lady Arthur was fully more concerned for her horses than herself: she said, "Take out the horses and go to Cockhoolet: leave them to rest and feed, and tell Mr. Ormiston to send for us. We'll sit here very comfortably till you come back: it won't take you long. Thomas will go too, but give us in the luncheon-basket first."

The men, being refreshed from the basket, set off with the horses, leaving the ladies getting rapidly snowed up in the carriage. As the wind rose almost to a gale, Lady Arthur remarked "that it was at least better to be stuck firm among the snow than to be blown away."

It is a grand thing to suffer in a great cause, but if you suffer merely because you have done a "daftlike" thing, the satisfaction is not the same.

The snow sifted into the carriage at the minutest crevice like fine dust, and, melting, became cold, clammy and uncomfortable. To be set down in a glass case on a moor without shelter in the height of a snowstorm has only one recommendation: it is an uncommon situation, a novel experience. The ladies—at least Lady Arthur—must, one would think, have felt foolish, but it is a chief qualification in a leader that he never acknowledges that he is in the wrong: if he once does that, his prestige is gone.

The first hour of isolation wore away pretty well, owing to the novelty of the the position; the second also, being devoted to luncheon; the third dragged a good deal; but when it came to the fourth; with light beginning to fail and no word of rescue, matters looked serious. The cold was becoming intense—a chill, damp cold that struck every living thing through and through. What could be keeping the men? Had they lost their way, or what could possibly have happened?

"This is something like an adventure," said Lady Arthur cheerily.

"It might pass for one," said Miss Adamson, "if we could see our way out of it. I wonder if we shall have to sit here all night?"

"If we do," said Lady Arthur, "we can have no hope of wild beasts scenting us out or of being attacked by banditti."

"Nor of any enamored gentleman coming to the rescue," said Miss Adamson: "it will end tamely enough. I remember reading a story of travel among savages, in which at the close of the monthly instalment the travelers were left buried alive except their heads, which were above ground, but set on fire. That was a very striking situation, yet it all came right; so there is hope for us, I think."

"Oh, don't make me laugh," said Alice: "I really can't laugh, I am so stiff with cold."

"It's a fine discipline to our patience to sit here," said Lady Arthur. "If I had thought we should have to wait so long, I would have tried what I could do while it was light."

VIII

At length they heard a movement among the snow, and voices, and immediately a light appeared at the window, shining through the snow-blind, which was swept down by an arm and the carriage-door opened.

"Are you all safe?" were the first words they heard.

"In the name of wonder, George, how are you here? Where are John and Thomas?" cried Lady Arthur.

"I'll tell you all about it after," said George Eildon: "the thing is to get you out of this scrape. I have a farm-cart and pair, and two men to help me: you must just put up with roughing it a little."

"Oh, I am so thankful!" said Alice.

The ladies were assisted out of the carriage into the cart, and settled among plenty of straw and rugs and shawls, with their backs to the blast. Mr. Eildon shut the door of the carriage, which was left to its fate, and then got in and sat at the feet of the ladies. Mr. Ormiston's servant mounted the trace-horse and Thomas sat on the front of the cart, and the cavalcade started to toil through the snow.

"Do tell us, George, how you are here. I thought it was only heroes of romance that turned up when their services were desperately needed."

"There have been a good many heroes of romance to-day," said Mr. Eildon. "The railways have been blocked in all directions; three trains with about six hundred passengers have been brought to a stand at the Drumhead Station near this; many of the people have been half frozen and sick and fainting. I was in the train going south, and very anxious to get on, but it was impossible. I got to Cockhoolet with a number of exhausted travelers just as your man arrived, and we came off as soon as we could to look for you. You have stood the thing much better than many of my fellow-travelers."

"Indeed!" said Lady Arthur, "and have all the poor people got housed?"

"Most of them are at the station-house and various farm-houses. Mr. Forester, Mr. Ormiston's son-in-law, started to bring up the last of them just as I started for you."

"Well, I must say I have enjoyed it," Lady Arthur said, "but how are we to get home to-night?"

"You'll not get home to-night: you'll have to stay at Cockhoolet, and be glad if you can get home to-morrow."

"And where have you come from, and where are you going to?" she asked.

"I came from London—I have only been a week home from Australia—and I am on my way to Eildon. But here we are."

And the hospitable doors of Cockhoolet were thrown wide, sending out a glow of light to welcome the belated travelers.

Mrs. Ormiston and her daughter, Mrs. Forester—who with her husband was on a visit at Cockhoolet—received them and took them to rooms where fires made what seemed tropical heat compared with the atmosphere in the glass case on the moor.

Miss Garscube was able for nothing but to go to bed, and Miss Adamson stayed with her in the room called Queen Mary's, being the room that unfortunate lady occupied when she visited Cockhoolet.

On this night the castle must have thought old times had come back again, there was such a large and miscellaneous company beneath its roof. But where were the knights in armor, the courtiers in velvet and satin, the boars' heads, the venison pasties, the wassail-bowls? Where were the stately dames in stiff brocade, the shaven priests, the fool in motley, the vassals, the yeomen in hodden gray and broad blue bonnet? Not there, certainly.

No doubt, Lady Arthur Eildon was a direct descendant of one of "the queen's Maries," but in her rusty black gown, her old black bonnet set awry on her head, her red face, her stout figure, made stouter by a sealskin jacket, you could not at a glance see the connection. The house of Eildon was pretty closely connected with the house of Stuart, but George Eildon in his tweed suit, waterproof and wideawake looked neither royal nor romantic. We may be almost sure that there was a fool or fools in the company, but they did not wear motley. In short, as yet it is difficult to connect the idea of romance with railway rugs, waterproofs, India-rubbers and wide-awakes and the steam of tea and coffee: three hundred years hence perhaps it may be possible. Who knows? But for all that, romances go on, we may be sure, whether people are clad in velvet or hodden gray.

Lady Arthur was framing a romance—a romance which had as much of the purely worldly in it as a romance can hold. She found that George was on his way to see his cousin, Lord Eildon, who within two days had had a severe access of illness. It seemed to her a matter of certainty that George would be duke of Eildon some day. If she had only had the capacity to have despatched that letter she had written when she believed she was dying, after him to Australia! Could she send it to him yet? She hesitated: she could hardly bring herself to compromise the dignity of Alice, and her own. She had a short talk with him before they separated for the night.

"I think you should go home by railway to-morrow," he said. "It is blowing fresh now, and the trains will all be running to-morrow. I am sorry I have to go by the first in the morning, so I shall probably not see you then,"

"I don't know," she said: "it is a question if Alice will be able to travel at all to-morrow."

"She is not ill, is she?" he said. "It is only a little fatigue from exposure that ails her, isn't it?"

"But it may have bad consequences," said Lady Arthur: "one never can tell;" and she spoke in an injured way, for George's tones were not encouraging. "And John, my coachman—I haven't seen him—he ought to have been at hand at least: if I could depend on any one, I thought it was him."

"Why, he was overcome in the drift to-day: your other man had to leave him behind and ride forward for help. It was digging him out of the snow that kept us so long in getting to you. He has been in bed ever since, but he is getting round quite well."

"I ought to have known that sooner," she said.

"I did not want to alarm you unnecessarily."

"I must go and see him;" and she held out her hand to say good-night. "But you'll come to Garscube Hall soon: I shall be anxious to hear what you think of Frank. When will you come?"

"I'll write," he said.

Lady Arthur felt that opportunity was slipping from her, and she grew desperate. "Speaking of writing," she said, "I wrote to you when I had the fever last year and thought I was dying: would you like to see that letter?"

"No," he said: "I prefer you living."

"Have you no curiosity? People can say things dying that they couldn't say living, perhaps."

"Well, they have no business to do so," he said. "It is taking an unfair advantage, which a generous nature never does; besides, it is more solemn to live than die."

"Then you don't want the letter?"

"Oh yes, if you like."

"Very well: I'll think of it. Can you show me the way to John's place of refuge?"

They found John sitting up in bed, and Mrs, Ormiston ministering to him: the remains of a fowl were on a plate beside him, and he was lifting a glass of something comfortable to his lips.

"I never knew of this, John," said his mistress, "till just a few minutes ago. This is sad."

"Weel, it doesna look very sad," said John, eying the plate and the glass. "Yer leddyship and me hae gang mony a daftlike road, but I think we fairly catched it the day."

"I don't know how we can be grateful enough to you, Mrs. Ormiston," said Lady Arthur, turning to their hostess.

"Well, you know we could hardly be so churlish as to shut our doors on storm-stayed travelers: we are very glad that we had it in our power to help them a little."

"It's by ordinar' gude quarters," said John: "I've railly enjoyed that hen. Is 't no time yer leddyship was in yer bed, after siccan a day's wark?"

"We'll take the hint, John," said Lady Arthur; and in a little while longer most of Mr. Ormiston's unexpected guests had lost sight of the day's adventure in sleep.

IX

By dawn of the winter's morning all the company, the railway pilgrims, were astir again—not to visit a shrine, or attend a tournament, or to go hunting or hawking, or to engage in a foray or rieving expedition, as guests of former days at the castle may have done, but quietly to make their way to the station as the different trains came up, the fresh wind having done more to clear the way than the army of men that had been set to work with pickaxe and shovel. But although the railways and the tweeds and the India-rubbers were modern, the castle and the snow and the hospitality were all very old-fashioned—the snow as old as that lying round the North Pole, and as unadulterated; the hospitality old as when Eve entertained Raphael in Eden, and as true, blessing those that give and those that take.

Mr. Eildon left with the first party that went to the station; Lady Arthur and the young ladies went away at midday; John was left to take care of himself and his carriage till both should be more fit for traveling.

Of the three ladies, Alice had suffered most from the severe cold, and it was some time before she entirely recovered from the effects of it. Lady Arthur convinced herself that it was not merely the effects of cold she was suffering from, and talked the case over with Miss Adamson, but that lady stoutly rejected Lady Arthur's idea. "Miss Garscube has got over that long ago, and so has Mr. Eildon," she said dryly. "Alice has far more sense than to nurse a feeling for a man evidently indifferent to her." These two ladies had exchanged opinions exactly. George Eildon had only called once, and on a day when they were all from home: he had written several times to his aunt regarding Lord Eildon's health, and Lady Arthur had written to him and had told him her anxiety about the health of Alice. He expressed sympathy and concern, as his mother might have done, but Lady Arthur would not allow herself to see that the case was desperate.

She had a note from her sister-in-law, Lady George, who said "that she had just been at Eildon, and in her opinion Frank was going, but his parents either can't or won't see this, or George either. It is a sad case—so young a man and with such prospects—but the world abounds in sad things," etc., etc. But sad as the world is, it is shrewd with a wisdom of its own, and it hardly believed in the grief of Lady George for an event which would place her own son in a position of honor and affluence. But many a time George Eildon recoiled from the people who did not conceal their opinion that he might not be broken-hearted at the death of his cousin. There is nothing that true, honorable, unworldly natures shrink from more than having low, unworthy feelings and motives attributed to them.

X

Lady Arthur Eildon made up her mind. "I am supposed," she said to herself, "to be eccentric: why not get the good of such a character?" She enclosed her dying letter to her nephew, which was nothing less than an appeal to him on behalf of Alice, assuring him of her belief that Alice bitterly regretted the answer she had given his letter, and that if she had it to do over again it would be very different. When Lady Arthur did this she felt that she was not doing as she would be done by, but the stake was too great not to try a last throw for it. In an accompanying note she said, "I believe that the statements in this letter still hold true. I blamed myself afterward for having influenced Alice when she wrote to you, and now I have absolved my conscience." (Lady Arthur put it thus, but she hardly succeeded in making herself believe it was a case of conscience: she was too sharp-witted. It is self-complacent stupidity that is morally small.) "If this letter is of no interest to you, I am sure I am trusting it to honorable hands."

She got an answer immediately. "I thank you," Mr. Eildon said, "for your letters, ancient and modern: they are both in the fire, and so far as I am concerned shall be as if they had never been."

It was in vain, then, all in vain, that she had humbled herself before George Eildon. Not only had her scheme failed, but her pride suffered, as your finger suffers when the point of it is shut by accident in the hinge of a door. The pain was terrible. She forgot her conscience, how she had dealt treacherously—for her good, as she believed, but still treacherously—with Alice Garscube: she forgot everything but her own pain, and those about her thought that decidedly she was very eccentric at this time. She snubbed her people, she gave orders and countermanded them, so that her servants did not know what to do or leave undone, and they shook their heads among themselves and remarked that the moon was at the full.

But of course the moon waned, and things calmed down a little. In the next note she received from her sister-in-law, among other items of news she was told that her nephew meant to visit her shortly—"Probably," said his mother, "this week, but I think it will only be a call. He says Lord Eildon is rather better, which has put us all in good spirits," etc.

Now, Lady Arthur did not wish to see George Eildon at this time—not that she could not keep a perfect and dignified composure in any circumstances, but her pride was still in the hinge of the door—and she went from home every day. Three days she had business in town: the other days she drove to call on people living in the next county. As she did not care for going about alone, she took Miss Adamson always with her, but Alice only once or twice: she was hardly able for extra fatigue every day. But Miss Garscube was recovering health and spirits, and looks also, and when Lady Arthur left her behind she thought, "Well, if George calls to-day, he'll see that he is not a necessary of life at least." She felt very grateful that it was so, and had no objections that George should see it.

He did see it, for he called that day, but he had not the least feeling of mortification: he was unfeignedly glad to see Alice looking so well, and he had never, he thought, seen her look better. After they had spoken in the most quiet and friendly way for a little she said, "And how is your cousin, Lord Eildon?"

"Nearly well: his constitution seems at last fairly to have taken a turn in the right direction. The doctors say that not only is he likely to live as long as any of us, but that the probability is he will be a robust man yet."

"Oh, I am glad of it—I am heartily glad of it!"

"Why are you so very glad?"

"Because you are: it has made you very happy—you look so."

"I am excessively happy because you believe I am happy. Many people don't: many people think I am disappointed. My own mother thinks so, and yet she is a good woman. People will believe that you wish the death of your dearest friend if he stands between you and material good. It is horrible, and I have been courted and worshiped as the rising sun;" and he laughed. "One can afford to laugh at it now, but it was very sickening at the time. I can afford anything, Alice: I believe I can even afford to marry, if you'll marry a hard-working man instead of a duke."

"Oh, George," she said, "I have been so ashamed of that letter I wrote."

"It was a wicked little letter," he said, "but I suppose it was the truth at the time: say it is not true now."

"It is not true now," she repeated, "but I have not loved you very dearly all the time; and if you had married I should have been very happy if you had been happy. But oh," she said, and her eyes filled with tears, "this is far better."

"You love me now?"

"Unutterably."

"I have loved you all the time, all the time. I should not have been happy if I had heard of your marriage."

"Then how were you so cold and distant the day we stuck on the moor?"

"Because it was excessively cold weather: I was not going to warm myself up to be frozen again. I have never been in delicate health, but I can't stand heats and chills."

"I do believe you are not a bit wiser than I am. I hear the carriage: that's Lady Arthur come back. How surprised she will be!"

"I am not so sure of that," George said. "I'll go and meet her."

When he appeared Lady Arthur shook hands tranquilly and said, "How do you do?"

"Very well," he said. "I have been testing the value of certain documents you sent me, and find they are worth their weight in gold."

She looked in his face.

"Alice is mine," he said, "and we are going to Bashan for our wedding-tour. If you'll seize the opportunity of our escort, you may hunt up Og's bed."

"Thank you," she said: "I fear I should be de trop."

"Not a bit; but even if you were a great nuisance, we are in the humor to put up with anything."

"I'll think of it. I have never traveled in the character of a nuisance yet—at least, so far as I know—and it would be a new sensation: that is a great inducement."

Lady Arthur rushed to Miss Adamson's room with the news, and the two ladies had first a cry and then a laugh over it. "Alice will be duchess yet," said Lady Arthur: "that boy's life has hung so long by a thread that he must be prepared to go, and he would be far better away from the cares and trials of this world, I am sure;" which might be the truth, but it was hard to grudge the boy his life.