Chapter XXII: When Joy and Sorrow Meet

"No, I'm never going back again," and the stamp of determination was on Harold's face as he spoke the words; "I'm never going back to school any more." He was gravely adjusting his books in the well-worn bag as he spoke, giving each one a final pat as if in last farewell. "I've been there too long," as he looked up at his father and me.

The room was small, the furniture shabby and worn now; for some years had passed since we came to live in the little house that still preserved to us an unbroken circle. We were all seated around the table in the dining-room--which was our only living-room--and Gordon had been telling Dorothy some wonderful story of red Indians when Harold's avowal had suddenly transfixed us all.

It is wonderful how a sudden wave of emotion gives prominence, in the memory, to everything connected with it. I could draw, even now, as accurate a picture of all the surroundings as though the event were but of yesterday. The room was small, as already described; but so was the house, for that matter. Yet there was something sweet and lovely, to me at least, about this tiny room that night--for my loved ones were all within it. I was sewing at the time, mending, of which there seemed to be no end; but every now and then my eyes would refresh themselves upon the little group. Gordon was still, despite the years, by far the handsomest of them all. The tokens of toil and care were not to be denied, but a deeper calm and sweetness could be seen upon the noble face as he bended over the golden locks of our little daughter. And very winsome was little Dorothy, laughing up into her father's eyes, reading there, as children are not slow to do, the signs of a consuming love. Grandfather Laird was dozing in the big armchair in the corner, his hand still resting on his shepherd's staff; dear old grandfather, whose race was nearly run, the strong Scottish face stamped more and more with the simple grandeur of his nature as he came nearer to the eternal verities on which his mind had dwelt so long.

I think my heart had gone out increasingly to grandfather as the years went by. Denied my own immediate circle in my girlhood's home, my affections had struck deep root amid all that Gordon loved. Perhaps I ought to say here that Gordon more than once had wanted me to go South again--and he would even have accompanied me. But I always felt it was too late, after my mother had entered into rest--besides, there always yawned before me the gulf that still lay between my uncle and my husband.

In addition to all this, to tell the honest truth, I don't know how we could have devised ways and means, even if I had been willing to visit my dear Southland again. For nobody will ever know the bitterness of the struggle that we entered upon with our departure from St. Andrew's. The pinching and paring and piteous penury that came with our change of lot lingers with me yet as a troubled dream. Yet I want to say, in case this story should ever see the light and anybody recognize its hero, that I never heard a word of complaint from Gordon's lips. If I loved him before I almost worshipped him now. With utter abandonment of devotion he gave himself to the struggling and sinful people of the needy quarter in which we made our home and among whom we found our work. All his buoyant vigour, his splendid intellect, his glorious heart, were given unreservedly to his lowly toil.

And I think I can say, with all regard to modesty, that I honestly tried to help him. His people grew as dear to me, I verily believe, as they were to him. Of course, my work was largely in our humble home, which I tried to make as bright and comfortable for Gordon as I could. The children, too, filled my life with busy joy--but I gave every hour I could spare, and all the strength I could command, to help Gordon in his noble drudgery.

I hardly know what I would have done, through all those trying days, if it had not been for grandfather. For one thing, his influence over Harold, now in the perilous paths of youth, filled my heart with thankful gladness. His devotion to his grandson became the passion of his life; he seemed unhappy if Harold was out of his sight, and the boy's future was his absorbing thought.

Then, besides, grandfather's life was so full of Christian peace; and his faith, in spite of the awful disappointment that Gordon's course had brought him, remained true and tranquil through it all. I really think he was the best Christian I ever knew. And how he comforted me, no one will ever know till all such secrets be revealed. For ours was a common sorrow. Soon it became evident to us both that Gordon, nobly devoted though he was, was turning more and more from the old truths that his father held so dear. Nor were they, I think, less precious to myself; the deeper the darkness grew, and the more Gordon seemed to turn from the truths that had blessed my life, the more my troubled heart seemed to find its refuge in the great realities of a Divine Saviour, and an atoning Lord, and a Heavenly Father who answers prayer; and I always found grandfather's sorrowing spirit seeking the same solace as my own.

I see them all again as they sat that night about the table; the quick motion of Gordon's head is vivid to me now, as he turned from the clamorous Dorothy and gave all his attention to his son.

"I've been at school too long," Harold repeated firmly, "and now I'm going to do something--to earn my own living."

"What makes you say that, my son?" Gordon asked, the pallor on his face betraying his emotion.

"Because I've found out all about it," Harold replied confidently; "surely you don't think I'm such a stupid as not to see all it has meant to you and mother--all the sacrifice, I mean--and all the struggle you've had to keep me going--and all the things you've had to give up. I know how poor we are," he went on passionately, "and I should have stopped long ago, and tried to help instead of being a burden to you." Then he quoted one or two of his proofs, which simple womanly pride forbids me to record; but they were true enough, and it nearly broke my heart to see the sadness on Gordon's face. For there was almost nothing he could say, and his poor remonstrances were of no avail.

"Look at mother," Harold broke out vehemently; "look at mother's dress. It's the same one she's had for years--and it's mended," he added in fiery sadness, "and it's the only one she has in the world except just one for Sundays--and it's shabby, too. And that's all for me, for me and Dorothy--but especially for me--and I'm not going to stand it any longer. Besides, I've got a place--and I'm going to begin on Monday. I'm going away to Carletonville. But I'll be home for Christmas," the fiery tone melting into tenderness as he rose from his seat and came over beside me.

For he had caught the expression of my face. Ah me! there are few moments in a woman's life like to that which announces the outgoing of her child from her home, how humble soever that home may be, Especially if the outgoing one be her first-born son! It was as if a knife had gone through my heart.

"But, what are you going to do, my boy?--what kind of work, I mean?" I asked in a trembling voice, the garment I was mending falling unheeded to the floor.

"It's a bank," he answered proudly; "Mr. Duncan got me in. I didn't say anything to anybody till I got it settled. But I wrote the application myself--and they said it was the best letter they ever got from an applicant," a slight flush of pride on the boyish face. "And Mr. Duncan says there's other work I can get to do--at nights--and I'll be able to support myself from the start," his breath coming fast with growing excitement as he turned his eyes first on his father and then on me.

"You shan't," I cried, with sudden fear, as it broke on me that he was actually going away. Our poverty was as nothing then. "Oh, Harold, you mustn't--I cannot let you go," and I clung to him as though he were going away that selfsame hour.

Gordon seemed unable to speak, sitting still and staring at the boy. Harold's cheeks were glowing and his eyes were sparkling; his arm was still about me.

Suddenly my husband found a voice, breaking out into a torrent of remonstrance. Really, it was quite unlike him to grow so agitated--but Gordon's whole life was in his children. "If your mother and I can stand it, there's no reason why you should object," he pleaded, after many other arguments had been pressed in vain. But Harold was immovable; his word had been passed, he said, and he would not recede from it.

"Let the laddie gang," came suddenly from grandfather's chair in the corner. I think we had forgotten he was there. "It's the auld way o' the world--the bairnies must leave the nest some time," he added, his own voice shaking. "An' his faither's God wull ha'e him in His guid an' holy keeping--the Almichty'll find the path for him. Come here, my laddie," and he held out his arms. Harold came over, wondering; the patriarch laid his hands in blessing on his head, and then committed him to God in words of such beauty as I think I never heard before.

But Gordon protested long and earnestly. "Anything but the bank," he said at last; "I cannot bear, my son, to think of you in a bank."

"That's what I think," I cried, eagerly seconding; "they make them work so hard--and it's all indoors--and Harold's not overly strong," I pleaded, careless of the splendid form that stood beside grandfather's chair.

"That has nothing to do with it," Gordon interrupted in his abrupt way; "it's not of that I'm thinking at all. It's the peril of the thing, my son--the danger, the temptations--just to think of the money that passes through a lad's hands when he's put into a bank. And that's how so many of them are ruined--for time and eternity," he added solemnly.

"Oh, Gordon," I cried in protest, "you don't mean stealing, Gordon, stealing money--you don't mean that?"

"That's exactly what I mean," said Gordon, untrained to subterfuge. "I mean the peril of handling so much money."

Whereat I fell into a storm of dissent, half in excitement, half in anger, as though my son had been accused already. I fear I spoke words harsh and unreasonable, but my defense must be that I was all unstrung with sudden grief and fear. Till by and by I was as violent in my demand for his father's consent as I had been in denial of my own, so strange are the cross-currents that trouble a woman's heart.

But we might as well have all been silent, so far as any effect on Harold was concerned. He had promised and he was going--and that was the end of it. So the outcome of the whole matter was a kind of tacit agreement, before we parted for the night, that Harold was to have his way.

When Gordon and I were in our own room, the door tightly shut, I pleaded with him to accept a plan that my poor bewildered mind had conjured up. "Let me write to uncle," was the burden of my cry; "if our boy is leaving us because we're not able to support him, uncle could change all that; he could at least undertake to complete his education--and I know he will, I know he will."

But Gordon's face was like marble. In the last appeal a Scotchman is always Scotch--and I knew Gordon was thinking of that last night when he had been all but turned from uncle's door. "Not while we have a crust to eat or a hand to toil," he said, in a tone so low and resolute that I actually feared to press my argument with another word; "no child of mine shall be dependent on his father's enemy;" which language smote me to the heart--nor do I think Gordon would have uttered it in a calmer mood.

Before we put out the light, his face still white and drawn, he took me by the hand and led me towards the bed. We knelt and prayed together--but my heart was bleeding. And anyhow--it is hard to write it down--Gordon and I didn't seem so close together now, when we prayed, as we once had been. I had the phantom feeling that we prayed apart. He had beckoned me, years before, in to faith's Holy Place where the Divine Saviour waited for us both; I had faltered in, groping for the way, bringing a broken and contrite heart--and I had found my husband gone.

It was the deep dark before the dawn when I slipped noiselessly into Harold's room--and I prayed beside his bed. I loved to hear him breathing; and I wondered if God could hear _me_--my soul, I mean, half panting in its loneliness.