CHAPTER XXVIII.

MR. SAVILLE HEATON ALSO PREACHES.

MR. SAVILLE HEATON had not the natural advantages which distinguished Mr. Frere. His voice was rather weak, and an occasional hesitation, which was not exactly a stammer, induced a repetition of words just pronounced, as if he had not been satisfied with the way in which they were delivered; and sometimes gave that appearance of confusion which may be observed when a person reading aloud loses his place on the page.

But on this occasion he was more fluent than usual; and even Maggie half refrained from her customary slumbers, and shifted her large ignorant blue eyes with a certain complacency from one to another of the immediate auditors, as though ascertaining what effect her "mon's" discourse had on

their minds.

It was a very simple straightforward sermon, after all; with now and then a gleam of eloquence, and now and then an unexpected metaphor, and always a glow of real earnestness about it: on the hackneyed text, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also," -illustrated with the obvious lines of argument as to the various motives for "giving in charity," as it is called, the ambition to be thought well of by men, the superstitious hope to atone by good works for evil deeds, as of old great robbers built fine churches; on which principle Milan Cathedral is traditionally said to have been founded; being begun by a penitent nephew, in memory of an esteemed uncle whom he had murdered. He touched also on the "shame-faced giving," because our neighbours give; the customary giving, - as one drops a piece of money into a church-plate; and so forth. Nor did Mr. Saville Heaton become particularly impressive till rather more than half way on in his discourse; when he dwelt on the secret motives, and even wicked motives, which may produce apparently good actions; and in that part of his sermon his nervous hesitation seemed to leave him, and he spoke with more boldness and more eloquence of language than usual; the faces of his listeners being still noted in a sort of careless way by Maggie - while she occasionally broke the tedium of the time by irreverently and surreptitiously cracking green hazel nuts with her fine white teeth, and eating them.

And those faces would have made a good study for a painter. The warm approval,

the sympathy with all that was true and earnest, in the countenance of Old Sir Douglas; the serene, attentive, angelic brow and eyes of his young wife; Lorimer, with folded arms and set compressed mouth, looking apparently only at the uninteresting straw hassock at his feet; Alice, demure, and yet restless, furtively blinking from time to time side glances at the preacher; and Mr. James Frere (for he also attended, though his patroness at the Castle had tossed her head in scorn at the proposal) with his dark bright eyes fixed on Saville Heaton, rather with an expression of curiosity to learn how this man would handle the matter, than with any reference to the matter itself; but all attention to his words.

Then it was- as the speaker dwelt on the power of God, "to whom all hearts be open, all desires known," to sift and discern the variety of motives that may produce one common result; when he warned his hearers in the language of Scripture that "there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known;" that "whatsoever has been spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light, — and that which was whispered in the car in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops, "with all argument pertaining to those solemn texts and withering denunciations of the pharisaical hypocrisy which deludes man, but never can delude God; then it was, as I have said, that this shy and common-place minister became extremely impressive; and spoke indeed so forcibly and so well, that an electric thrill seemed to go through his small congregation, both among the learned and the unlearned.

Alice Ross sat stiller than ever; but her glance wandered from Heaton to Sir Douglas, and back again with sidelong skill to others of the group: while Mr. Frere's eyes were withdrawn from the preacher, though the expression of attention and curiosity even deepened in his face. He seemed to be resolving some problem in his mind. Suddenly his fine eyes flashed upwards again, and turned not on Heaton, but on Lorimer Boyd !

Their eyes met. Lorimer seemed to have been observing him. Some ripple of movement, which did not even amount to one of Mr. Boyd's "grim smiles," flickered round his mouth: and some of that inexplicable shrinking, which is visible in the human eye even when its gaze is not withdrawn in moments of fear, suspicion, or conscious duplicity-contracted for a second or two the bright, bold, clever orbs

which had "charmed" Miss Alice Ross. Then another expression passed into them. Not of fear; of defiance; of hard resolution; an accordance for the moment of the eyes with the hard, resolute, animal mouth: and then Mr. James Frere's countenance became, as before, simply attentive, and watchful of the preacher's closing words.

But there had been, in that short moment, between those two men, that strange spiritual communication which all of us who have any experience of life, know so well. Mr. Frere became aware that Mr. Boyd distrusted him; and Mr. Boyd, that he and bis distrust were alike defied and set at nought by the eloquent stranger.

Nor did it need the sealing of the conviction in Mr. Frere's mind that Lorimer had "something to do with the sermon," which was naturally produced by over-hearing Mr. Saville Heaton on their walk homewards answer Sir Douglas's kindly congratulations on the excellence of that discourse, by the modest deprecatory reply, "Well, I had the advantage of talking the subject over with Mr. Boyd: indeed, of reading the sermon to him, and receiving some valuable suggestions. He is a very superior man: a great scholar: a most cultivated mind: I feel greatly indebted to him for the interest he has shown in my plans and my school; and I consider my composition, such as it was, much benefited by his remarks." When Mr. James Frere heard this modest reply to Sir Douglas's compliments, he was walking immediately behind the group; side by side with Miss Alice Ross. Involuntarily he turned to her, to see how she 'took" the answer so made, and perhaps to make some disparaging comment on Mr. Boyd's interference, by way of guarding his own interests in that quarter. He met Alice's glance as he had previously met Lorimer's; and received much the same degree of enlightenment from it, though of a more satisfactory kind.

He decided that it was quite unnecessary to make any observation. He therefore

merely sighed, and, casting his eyes wistfully over the hills and intervening scenery, he said, "I would I were away from this place! I must think of leaving Clochnaben."

perience of the sex, was just sufficiently startled to pause before he said:

"No: I am not easily beaten, Alice Ross."

Whether she noticed his calling her by her name, and approved or disapproved the liberty so taken, could not be guessed from outward evidence. She certainly approved the sentiment, if the smile of odd sinister triumph that slowly left her small thin mouth spoke true: and she made no at tempt to withdraw from his companionship, and join some one else in the walking party.

Nay, when Mr. Frere turned back after escorting her, and shook hands with Sir Douglas, and lamented that he could not stay to dinner, but must return to the Dowager Clochnaben, he saw, with great satisfaction, that pussy-cat Alice had glided out of the party at the castle door, and was standing alone and en cachette against a mass of thick laurels, watching him as he walked away.

If Mr. Frere had been a commonplace gentleman he might have stopped, and waved his hand perhaps, in token of farewell, and of his consciousness that she was thus occupied. But he knew better. Not. Isaac, when he went forth to meditate in the fields at eventide, could seem moreutterly unconscious of observation. Only,. when he reached the vantage ground of an slight ascent which prefaced the more rugged climb to come he paused at that knoll, and lifting his hat, not in token of salutation, but as relieving himself of a formal encumbrance, stood and gazed at the red sky of evening and the picturesque scenery, believ-. ing (not in vain) that those shrewd grey eyes were still fixed upon him, and that he himself appeared to the full as picturesque as any other object within their view.

which port he had reached, intending to return from Spain through France.

He

"And, indeed, it is now more than eight days that his young Excellency has not sworn, nor shown any symptoms of his usual animation, and my mind is at sea, and mi crepa il cuore; it breaks my heart; for, could I hear the well-beloved Excellency call me a dog,-or find some fault, I would revive; and, indeed, only yesterday, it was in my hope that he was about to throw at me the cup of lemonade (which he relished not, finding it bitter), for his eyes showed much anger; but with grief, I say, it passed, and he only set the cup on one side. And that same evening; my limbs all trembled, for he called and said -Giuseppe! death is coming; tell my uncle to forgive everything, as I do.' And with a great sigh his young Excellency sank in a great swoon. Now, if some friend will come to his Excellency, it will be good. Not for weariness, for I am strong, and will nurse the Signore as a child; but for cheering by words in the English tongue. and to understand well whether he should live or die; and if he die, to say what shall be done.

In a hand nearly illegible, but evidently scrawled by Kenneth, was added, "Tell my mother I think of her and Torrieburn."

Little had he written, poor Kenneth, to that mother, or his uncle, or any one else during his wanderings. "Au jour, le jour" was his motto, and the careless enjoyment of passing hours his sole object in life. Now life was trembling in the balance, and this moan from a foreign land came, like a sick child's cry at midnight, to startle them all. Who should go to Kenneth?

Sir Douglas could not. Dearly as he loved this Absalom, he had holier and closer ties that held him back. His young wife was ailing, was soon to be a mother;

gratitude of boyhood and adolescence had been his sole return for much kindness, and the bitter speech had once been flung at him in one of Kenneth's rages,—"Your care of me! Who thanks you? You were paid for your care of me, such as it was,”still, the gentle nature of the man, and his desire to do his best for Maggie's son, had upborne him through much insult and folly, and they had not been on bad terms during the latter years of Kenneth's youth, nor had Kenneth been much at home, either to provoke, or be provoked by, unwelcome communion.

Saville Heaton was to go, then and alone. As to being accompanied by his wife, it was not to be thought of for a moment. Maggie raving and sobbing by a sick bed, where, of all things, quiet was most desirable; Maggie struggling to explain herself in broad Scotch among foreigners, to whom even English was barely comprehensible; Maggie travelling and living in foreign hotels, who had never stirred from Torrieburn;-it was simply an impossibility.

Luckily it never appeared to that wilful female in any other light. She shrieked and sobbed over Kenneth's state incessantly during the two or three hours of preparation that intervened between the receipt of the ill tidings and her husband's departure, but she never thought of pleading to go with him. She rocked herself to and fro in spasmodic sobbings, and left the packing and arranging of his scanty comforts to the yet more ignorant servant lassie. She repeatedly told him he would be killed and eaten " amang they outlandish men," and then, starting to her feet, urged him to begone, and reproached him for slowness, "while, maybe, Kenneth lay deeing." When at length he attempted to bid her farewell and start, she clung to him as if she had never intended him to leave her; and, as the dog-cart rapidly drove away, above the sound of its wheels came the sharp successive cries of her distress. Nor did her mood alter, until provoked by the efforts of the poor awkward servant to console and quiet her, and persuade her to leave greeting and step ben, like a dear leddie," — she turned suddenly, and administered to her would-be sympathiser a most sound and

vigorous box on the ear. The girl retreated "ben" into the house, and Maggie's renewed howling was only put a stop to, as usual, by sheer bodily exhaustion.

By the time her father, the miller-to whom her mother had gone to communicate the "awfu' tidins "— arrived at Torrieburn House, Maggie was quiet enough; and the three sat down in the parlour to a bowl of extremely stiff whisky toddy. The "auld wife" retained sufficient discretion to drag her daughter upstairs after a while, and put her to bed before she retired to her own; but the miller was still asleep on the horsehair sofa, with all his clothes on, when the morning shone with fullest light in at the windows of the room where Saville Heaton's books and better occupations lay scattered about, testifying alike to the contrast of his tastes with those who had surrounded him, and to the haste with which he had departed.

No place, no corner of the wildest desert or the deepest wood is so silent as the room in which we have been accustomed daily to hear a familiar voice. When Maggie came down in the mid-day, there was more weeping. And, when later in the afternoon, Sir Douglas, in his pity, rode over to see her, and actually proposed that she should come up and dine at Glenrossie, she shook her head, saying, she would rather" stay amang her mon's bukes and think o' Kenneth; a piece of vague sentiment which found favour with the tender-hearted soldier; though, indeed, there mingled with Maggie's real sorrow a covert repugnance to be sorrowful in presence of Gertrude, whom she persisted in looking upon as a fause-hearted jilt," and a "proud jade," and connecting her with Kenneth's long absence and heavy discontents, as show in his own angry letters and confessions.

66

Sir Douglas, too, had his extra sadness out of the bad news. He thought over the sentence, "Tell my uncle to forgive everything as I do!" Did the lad still think himself wronged? and how? What had been his grounds for resentment and complaint? Unjust; of course unjust, for Sir Douglas's conscience was clear of all offence, but still existent. What had he to "forgive," even in the waywardness of his own warped imagination?

Sir Douglas's heart ached as he sat through the silent dinner, where all were thinking in their various ways of Kenneth; and ached next day when he sat in his wife's beautiful morning room, gazing abstractedly over his book at the light on her

shining hair, and the gay patterned tapestry border she was working.

As he looked, he sighed; and at the sound of that sigh she looked up, and then she softly rose, and coming towards him, tenderly kissed his saddened brow.

Oh, my love; my dearest love; I wish," said Sir Douglas hesitatingly, "that I knew about Kenneth!"

"We shall have news of him soon," Gertrude answered, in her low quiet voice.

Some inexplicable link in that chain of memory, wherewith we are darkly bound," brought vividly back to old Sir Douglas a scene of the past. He saw his Gertrude, his young wife, in her actual form; but he saw also, beyond, and as it were through, that bright visible presence, - his Gertrude yet younger; the fair girl of the Villa Mandorlo, the night he had yearned to ask her about Kenneth, and had refrained.

Then, also, she had kissed him. It was her first caress; the caress not of passion, but of a tender and instinctive wish to comfort.

SAVILLE HEATON CONQUERED.

NEWS came. First bad and depressing, then better; Kenneth more cheerful, greatly pleased at Saville Heaton coming out to him; Giuseppe invaluable, as gentle as a nurse, and as active and robust as he was gentle. Then a fluctuation of worse again. Kenneth had a relapse, and was in an alarming state of depression and weakness; messages were received from him, of penitence and remorse for wasted years and misapplied energies; which tender Sir Douglas wept over, exulted over, repeated with a quivering smile to his wife; and then went back to old memories, old plans, old hopes, that had begun when he thought he would get Kenneth the brother sent to Eton, and "made a man of;" and flowered