Chapter I: His Bride

"We in our wedded life shall know no loss,
We shall new-date our years! What went before
Will be the time of promise, shadow, dream,
But this full revelation of great love!
For rivers blent take in a broader heaven,
And we shall blend our souls."
From Cloud of Witness.

"NOW we are together at last."

It was in a tone of deep triumphant content that General Macdonald made this assertion.

He and Rowena were facing each other in a first-class carriage. The Scotch express was taking them up to Scotland, and it was between nine and ten in the evening.

Their wedding-day, and the weather had been perfect: a typical June day, when all the freshness of early summer is at its sweetest and best. They had got their way, and only about half a dozen people were in the quiet little Sussex church when they made their vows together.

Rowena sat back looking radiant. She was dressed in a dark powder-blue coat and skirt with a travelling felt hat of the same hue, which intensified the blue in her eyes. But even now an irrepressible twinkle, of fun shot through them as she said:

"So you think we shall always find our own company sufficient, Hugh?"

"I shall never need anyone but you," he replied quickly.

"Except your little Mysie."

And then the General's grave intense look melted and he smiled.

"Ah—Mysie! I left her in tears because I would not bring her up. I felt it was too sacred a service at which to have a curious child commenting and looking on. How long you have kept me waiting! I can hardly even now realize that the waiting time is over. I thought at one time that the old lady would never let you go."

"Poor Mrs. Burke!" Rowena's eyes grew soft with pity. "You were always hard upon her; but you would not be hard if you could see her now. I used to wonder if she could ever have the necessary strength and pluck to alter her life; but it has all come about so easily."

"Do you think me very hard? You will have to teach me how to look at people leniently when their views clash with my own. I could do with more tolerance and sympathy, I own. But it has always been my way to go straight ahead, and black is never white to me."

Rowena put her hand on his very softly.

"And that is what I always admired in you—you drive straight for your goal. There is no uncertain sound when you sound your trumpet. When I think that my feet and yours will be treading the same path now, that I shall be able to look to you for support when I trip—why, I feel inclined to burst into a song of thanksgiving!" Then she added with a little laugh: "Now, after that rhapsody, may I come down to earth, and ask you if your old housekeeper will give me a pleasant welcome? Do you think she will like having a mistress, after having managed for you all these years?"

"Mrs. Dalziel serves me faithfully," said the General in a contented tone; "and she will, of course, be ready to serve you, too. Long ago she hoped you were coming to us. She actually had the audacity to tell me so. Our Scotch folk are not like anyone else."

"I have never asked you about Marion, yet. Do you really like her?"

"She is a real comfort: keeps in the background, and is never seen unless I send for her. And the child is learning well from her. Rowena, I will not spend these precious first few hours with you in talking about anyone else but ourselves. I want to feel that there is just you and myself here in the world. Let us shut every one else out."

So they talked in the same old way that both young and old lovers always talk, and the journey seemed one golden dream to Rowena. It was so new to her to be waited upon and cared for and protected, that at first she felt inclined to expostulate. Later she learnt to take it as her due.

They spent a few days in Edinburgh, and then turned towards the Highlands. It was a most lovely evening when they at last arrived at Abertarlie. A beautiful car was at the station—a great surprise to Rowena.

"You never told me you had started a car; I expected a shabby trap and horse hired for the occasion."

"I bought this a few months back; I determined that you should be able to get about and see your friends. I realize we are isolated, but I won't have you feel that you are shut up, and stranded away from your fellow-creatures. You are very sociable by nature, I know."

"Am I?" said Rowena, laughing. "I was very happy that year when I was laid upon my back and saw no one. And I have been happy this last year living amongst crowds. They say I can make myself happy anywhere, and I believe I can. Don't you think, you dear foolish man, that your company is good enough for me? But I won't pretend that I don't love a car. You and I can see the beauties of the Highlands in it. You will take me to some of the lochs that I have never seen, won't you?"

General Macdonald was a proud man when, a little later, he drove up to his weather-beaten old house and handed Rowena out of the car. There was a scream and a rush of flying feet, and Mysie was embracing them both. "Oh, you've come at last! At last! Miss Panton and I are simply sick of waiting for you! Oh, Mignon, you darling, stoop down and let me whisper to you. May I really call you 'Mother'? Dad said he would like me to."

"My darling, of course you may. Dad's wishes are mine."

Then up the steps she went, her hand in her husband's arm, and Mysie clinging hold of her at the other side. In the hall was the housekeeper, Mrs. Dalziel, and behind her a little group of servants.

General Macdonald turned to them very simply:

"I have brought my wife home, but she is not a stranger to you, and I am sure you will welcome her."

"Ah, indeed, we will with all our hearts," said Mrs. Dalziel, coming forward.

Rowena shook hands with her warmly.

"That is very sweet of you," she said. "I don't feel a stranger, for I love every inch of ground in the Highlands, and my heart never wanders from it."

Marion Panton was found in the inner hall, where tea was laid. Rowena hardly knew her, she was looking so bright and well. Three long windows that looked into the flower garden were wide open, and the scent of sweetbrier hedges and of wallflowers and narcissi filled the hall. A bowl of daffodils was upon the old oak table that held the tea. The shining silver and platter of Scotch scones and cakes gave a homely touch to the rather gloomy hall with its stone floor and dark oak-panelled walls.

Rowena was led up to the big chair at the table by her husband.

"There!" he said, smiling, as she seated herself. "That is where Mysie and I have been wanting to see you for many a long day."

"And it's strange how thoroughly at home I feel," said Rowena, with her laugh, as she slipped off her gloves and took hold of the massive silver teapot.

Tea was a most cheerful meal. Mysie was in her kilt.

"In honour of you," she informed Rowena. "I couldn't wear it in London. Cousin Bel was quite shocked when I put it on once. She said it was boy's clothes, so Dad said I mustn't offend her eyes. But you love it, don't you? You like me to be thorough Scotch?"

"You can't be too Scotch for me," said Rowena.

When tea was over Miss Panton took Mysie away to the schoolroom, and General Macdonald took his wife all over the house. She had never been over it before, and was surprised at its spaciousness.

"Why, you could lodge fifty people here," she said, when they had finished going in and out of the quaint old rooms, all gloomily and sparsely furnished, except those in use. "We shall never be able to say we have no room for our friends."

Then she returned to the little suite of rooms that had been prepared for her. There was a little boudoir leading out of her bedroom which was now illumined by golden sunshine.

"I love a west room!" she exclaimed. "And oh, Hugh, what an exquisite enchanting view!"

Kneeling on the low window-seat, she leant out of the open window. She faced the loch in the distance, and the blue hills at the farther end of it. The woods in the glen were all in their freshest green, but now they seemed gleaming with gold. The colours and shadows on the silver waters of the loch were indescribably beautiful.

Rowena turned to meet her husband's eyes resting on her in grave content.

"Oh," she said, throwing out her hands, "isn't it easy to be good and happy with such a scene as this before one's eyes! I thought I remembered the beauties of our loch, but it has come to me with fresh force this evening. Hugh, I hope I shall live and die here. I never shall want to leave it."

Her rooms had been freshly papered and painted, and pretty fresh chintzes brightened the old furniture in them. "Miss Panton has helped us get them ready for you," said the General. "She and Mysie made a trip to Glasgow, and were most important and busy over it all. Nothing was too good. Nothing too expensive for you, so Mysie informed me."

"They have given me most charming rooms," said Rowena; then with an impulsive movement she clasped her arms round her husband's. "But what does anything matter, Hugh, as long as we are together? I feel I would be as jolly as a sandboy in an empty attic if you were by my side."

He could only smile at her. Speech was always difficult to him when he felt the deepest.

When they had looked over the house they wandered over the garden and grounds. Here Rowena saw much that could be improved, and longed to set to work at once.

"Do you give me carte blanche, Hugh, to make a lovely garden here? The ground would lend itself to my schemes; and I honestly enjoy having a wealth of flowers round any house."

"You can do as you like, if you can persuade Andrew to carry out your schemes. I think that will be the difficulty."

"I feel afraid of no one," said Rowena lightly. "I know Scotch gardeners are generally very formidable personages; but I will try my powers of persuasion upon Andrew."

They dined later on in the long dining-room, which held on its walls portraits of several generations of Macdonalds, and then Mysie appeared again, and insisted upon taking Rowena out into the garden again to see some of her pet nooks and haunts. She was introduced to the stables and to the dogs; even the poultry-yard had to be visited, and the little girl's bed-time came too soon for her.

"I haven't shown you half. Will you come with me to the Fairies' Knoll up the glen to-morrow? Dad won't believe in them. It's the only place I don't like him to come to with me. If an unbeliever is with you, you never see the little people. You and I will go quite by ourselves, eh?"

"Indeed we will, Flora," was the laughing response; and then she was hugged and kissed.

"Good night, Mother! There, I've said it, and I'll say it a hundred times a day till I get quite accustomed to it. It does seem funny at first, you know. I told Dad there must be no step about it, not one, there's not a single step between us, is there?"

"Not one, I hope," asserted Rowena.

When Mysie had disappeared she turned to her husband, who had been very silent during his child's chatter.

"Hugh, dearest, you and I will have to pray hard that we may be taught to train her aright. She is such a strong character, that she must grow up a noble woman. And don't laugh at her childish fancies. Let us keep her a child as long as we can."

"I have hope for her future now you are here," General Macdonald rejoined. "But a man is quite unfitted to cope with a girl. I have been divided between my love for her and a longing that she should know discipline whilst she is young. I shall hand her training over to you with thankfulness. Make her like yourself, and I shall be happy."

In the days that followed Rowena found that she had plenty of occupation for hands and brain. Mrs. Dalziel was very thorough in her kitchen premises, but the rest of the house sadly needed a lady's supervision. Then there were old friends to be visited, and new ones came to call, and General Macdonald demanded a good deal of his wife's leisure time. He was never so happy as when she was with him. Occasionally he had to go away on business, and then Mysie was to the fore, and often begged for a holiday to go out into the glen with "Mother." One day she and Rowena climbed up the face of a rugged cliff, and explored a cave in which Mysie was pretty sure that Prince Charlie had once hidden.

"Angus says there aren't many caves about here which Prince Charlie didn't know," said Mysie. "It isn't the one that is in the picture when Flora watched by him when he was asleep, but I'm pretty sure he must have found it out. Isn't it a splendid hiding-place? It seems such a pity, there's no one to hide in it. It's quite a waste, isn't it?"

Mysie stood looking round the low-vaulted cave as she spoke with wistfulness in her eyes.

"Only Angus and I know about this," she went on. "It's our secret, but I thought I must tell you. Promise to keep it secret, won't you?"

"Oh, yes," said Rowena, laughing, "indeed I will. And if ever a prince comes by our way, Flora, and wants to be hidden, you and I will hide him here."

"A prince may want our help one day," said Mysie hopefully. "He may be wandering about, trying to get up an army to fight for his throne like David did in the Bible, and then you and I will help him, won't we?"

As Rowena thought of the troubled world in which poor Mysie would be growing up, her face grew grave.

"I hope she won't be a hunter after false visions," she said later on, when talking about her to her father. "She has such a passion for self-sacrifice, and would seal her devotion by death."

"Teach her to fix her devotion upon our Master," said General Macdonald gravely. And Rowena tried to do it, but at present Mysie was not interested in religious talks.

"You're good, and Dad is good, and Miss Panton is good, but you're all grown-up. I shall get like it one day, but not just yet," she would say. Then she would add hastily, "I do pray always when I get into a fix, and God hears me sometimes. But I can't be always thinking about heaven. I do love my dear earth so much; and as for the loch, I adore it, and if heaven has no lochs, I don't think I shall be happy there at all!"

Rowena did not reprove her for such speeches, but she talked to her about having wider views and longer sight, and prayed continually for her.

She heard very often from Mrs. Burke, and then, about a month after her marriage, she received the sad tidings by telegram that her old friend had passed away. The following letter from Mrs. Panton arrived later:

"MY DEAR MRS. MACDONALD,—"

"You will be grieved at the sad news. It was all so sudden, that even now I can hardly believe she has left us. Only last Thursday she was downstairs, wonderfully bright and most interested in the village school-treat which was going to take place in her grounds. On Friday she wrote letters all the morning, and in the afternoon we went for a drive. The girls were with us, and she insisted upon going to the sea and having tea at the little inn there. She seemed rather tired when we returned home, but came down to dinner as usual, and stayed in the drawing-room afterwards till ten o'clock, her usual time for going to bed. She talked to me of you, and, as she often did, lamented her wasted years. I remember her saying:"

"'I am going to try to have some of my old friends down to stay with me. There are just a few who will come, I believe. I want to influence them as Rowena influenced me. I think it was her tremendous sympathy and love that was her power. I felt she never despised me even when I was at my worst. And gradually I came to despise myself and see what empty rubbish filled my life.'"

"She talked of Di Dunstan, who has been over here pretty often
lately and is going through a very miserable time. She said of her:"

"'She is being emptied as I was, and I only hope she won't miss
the right filling.'"

"I saw her into her room, and her maid was with her till she went to bed. The next morning when her maid went to call her she found she had passed away in her sleep. The doctor says that her heart has been very weak ever since her illness, and that it failed suddenly."

"I can only add that all of us are feeling her loss deeply. She has
been so wonderfully good and generous to me and mine."

"Yours most sincerely,"
"M. PANTON."

Rowena felt this blow very much. She and the General both went to England to the funeral.

When Mrs. Burke's will was read, it was found that she had left nearly the whole of her property to her sister. Her great-nephew and nieces came in for a very handsome legacy each, and to Rowena was left the sum of ten thousand pounds.

But what Rowena valued most of all was a little note, "To be delivered after my death," which was as follows:

"MY DEAREST ROWENA,—"

"I have just torn up a will in which I made you my sole legatee, but I see now that my relatives have a claim upon me, especially as they have so little of their own. I never can express my gratitude to you sufficiently. I hope your good husband will not prevent you succouring the worldlings as you go through life. I am convinced this is your mission. I am not good at it, but I commend to your care Di Dunstan, who is wondering if there is another better world than that in which she has been living; she has taken a flat in town. God bless you, dear. My doctor has told me that a long life will not be mine. Happy me to have Eternity in view!"

"Yours always lovingly,"
"C. BURKE."