Chapter III: An Aimless Life--Peace at Last

"The darkness seemed to lift at last, and I gradually became sensible. Everything around me was hazy for a time--a kind of a gauze curtain seemed to hang 'twixt me and as pretty a rustic picture as I ever yet had seen.

"I was not lying at the cliff foot, I was in a soft, warm bed, all hung round with snow-white curtains. It was so near the gloaming hour that I could see the firelight dancing on the plain deal furniture, and on the pictures of ships and boats that hung on the whitewashed wall. There was a stuffed sea-gull in a case, and the model of a fishing-boat also under glass, and on a little table a big ha' Bible and other devotional books, surmounted by a vase of freshly-culled wild flowers. Then I turned my aching eyes towards the little window, prettily festooned with curtains of dimity, and on the sill of which pot-flowers were growing, the red radiance of sunset lighting up and strangely altering the green of their leaves. But my eyes fell on a picture of a different sort at the same time: a young girl seated by the window sewing, her head bent towards the white seam, her dark hair half hiding a face that to me was as lovely as an angel's.

"Some movement on my part caused her to glance towards the bed, and seeing me awake she put down her work and came towards me.

"'Where am I?' I asked faintly.

"She put her fingers on my lips.

"'You are where ye maun lie,' she said, smiling, though I'm sure there were tears in her eyes; 'where ye maun lie till well, but ye must not speak.'

"Poor, simple lassie! I knew then as I knew after that she was doing her best to talk in English, though far dearer to me was the expressive language of Burns the poet.

"She now put something to my lips in a spoon. I drank, and slumbered again.

"When once more conscious, there stood the village doctor, and an old, white-haired, pleasant-faced dame in a fisher's cap.

"'Will he live, doctor?'

"'Live! yes, if he has plenty of good nursing.'

"'He'll want for naething here, puir laddie, that we can gie him. Ech, sir, but I'm thankful.'

"My young nurse was not there, so I slept for a time, and when I awoke she sat there again.

"'May I talk just a little?'

"'Yes, just a little,' she said. 'Tell me,' she added, 'who your people are, because ye ken they must be told?'

"'Plenty of time. Plenty of time,' I murmured.

"Then bit by bit I told her all my story.

"'I would rather,' I said, 'my mother knew nothing till I am up and about.'

"'But will she not be----'

"'No, no, child,' I said. 'She is used to my wandering ways, and oftentimes I do not write for months.'

"'Isn't that unkind?'

"'I fear so,' I said.

"'Are you _good_?' she asked pointedly.

"'Not too good I fear.'

"'D' ye say your prayers nicht and mornin'? Had ye said your prayers on that day ye fell o'er that fearfu' cliff?'

"I was silent.

"Only a simple Scotch lassie would have preached to me thus. But she looked so saint-like as she sat there, gazing almost mournfully at me with her calm, tender grey eyes, that really I was thinking then more of painting her in a subject than anything else.

"'No,' I said at last, 'I am not good as you understand it, but you shall teach me.'

"'The way of transgressors is hard,' said the little Puritan; 'but oh, sir, the plan o' salvation is sae simple a bairnie can understan' it. What's your name, sir?'

"'Eean.'

"'I'll pray for ye, Eean, and so will mother.'

"It was a month after this conversation ere I could stroll about the beach, and paint rock and cloud effects. The girl was seldom with me. She would be away out at sea casting nets with her father, and in her simplest attire, to my eyes, she always made the prettiest picture.

"Boys, this story of mine is in some measure a confession. I have at all events confessed to you already how idle and how vain I was, and now I am going to give you another illustration of my vanity I made up my mind then to make this girl my wife. I positively thought I had only to go in and win.

"I was well now, and it was only for her sake I still lingered in the village. I had taken up my abode at the village inn because, though they had nursed me back to life, those kindly fisher people positively refused to accept of anything in the shape of pecuniary reward. All that I was permitted to do was to paint the old couple sitting together Bible in hand on the stone dais in front of their little cottage door.

"So one day I called on the mother, but was not displeased to find the girl there too.

"I soon stated the object of this particular visit.

"'I _intended_,' I said, 'to make her daughter my wife.'

"A quick flush came over the girl's face. She glanced just once in my direction, then bent again over her white seam.

"'You intend,' said the old lady, 'to make my daughter your wife. O, sir, do you think sae little of us, that ye imagine ye hae only to command? We are only poor fisher-folks, sir, but we have the pride of honesty in our hearts. Na, na, na, sir, there is a great gulf fixed 'twixt you and us. Gang awa', sir, gang awa', and marry some gentle dame, that ye can introduce to your dear lady mother. May every blessin' on earth he yours, sir. We're nae insensible to the honour ye would do us. Dinna think us ungrateful--' here the good old soul broke down and cried--'but gang and leave us to our poverty and our honest toil.'

"'So be it, madam, so be it,' I said. 'I have yourself and daughter to thank for my life, but it was not to show my gratitude I made the proposal, but because I am wise enough to discover sterling worth and goodness even beneath a humble garb. Good-bye. I'll never think of marriage more.'

"I shook the mother's hand warmly. I but touched the girl's. To have looked even once in her sweet tearful face would have unmanned me, so I all but fled.

"I left the village long before daylight. I went home. Then I told my mother all.

"My muse was now my only comfort, for months went by before I thought again of painting.

"Then the same old idea recurred to me that had so nearly cost me my life on the mountain side.

"The book, _The Easel and the Harp_. _The Thistle and the Rose!_

"I commenced work in earnest now. But, alas! misfortune befell me. My soldier father died. He died in debt, and one short year afterwards I laid my darling mother in the church-yard beside him.

"I was alone in the world now--alone and with only a few thousands of pounds betwixt me and want, should I fail with my brush.

"I was awakened at last to the reality of life, and tried hard to do my best to face its storms.

"My great book! I laid my plans before publisher after publisher. Some of these received me kindly, praised the idea, but did not see their way.

"One told me that the people were not educated yet up to such a work, and it was to the people he had to look for success.

"I laid my plans before great artists. Each and all of these dissuaded me from any such undertaking. I called this envy. O the vanity of young manhood!

"I visited printers and lithographers next, as well as engravers. Each and all of these assured me the world was ripe for such a work, and by publishing it myself I should not only secure fame, but all the profits.

"I went home rejoicing, and at once commenced to work out my scheme. I soon after retired to a quiet rural village, and here I lived like a recluse for a whole year, working but dreaming as well.

"My work was finished.

"My book was published. _The Easel and the Harp_. _The Thistle and the Rose!_

"It did _not_ go like wild-fire. The critics hardly noticed it, not even to revile. I wished they had. Hardly a copy was sold, and I was all but ruined.

"I saw my vanity when it was too late. How bitterly now I felt the truth of the scriptural text, 'Pride goes before a fall, and haughtiness before destruction.'

"I had not been like the moth that seeks glory by courting a too close acquaintanceship with the candle, and falls groundwards with singed wings; but like the moth that set out to fly to the evening star, when, lo! clouds arose and rain fell, then down came the all too ambitious flutterer, every gossamer featherlet in its downy body draggled and wet, to lie in the grass and suffer sorrow.

"In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

"I hardly cared now to meet my old associates, much less my old masters. They had warned me in my overweening pride, I spurned their warning, and now I was crushed and hopeless.

"I believe to this day that I took my punishment like a man, I did not even pretend to laugh and treat my discomfiture lightly; so many of my friends would have stuck to me, and assisted me up again once more. But I shook the dust of London from my feet, and went away once more into the country to meditate and think. There still was hope for me. I was young, why should I mourn?

"The moth that tried to reach the star was able to fly again next evening, though it never could be the same moth as before. I had aimed at a too high ideal. I thought I had almost reached it. I fell. But I should rise again. Yes; but never the same man.

"I should leave this country, however and begin life anew in some far distant clime, and--so I vowed--endeavour to climb the ladder of fame one step at a time, instead of foolishly trying to rush it as I had done.

"And now I did the only wise thing I had yet done in my life. I took the little remains of my fortune--it consisted only of hundreds now--and placed it in a bank, keeping but enough to last me with economy a year. Then I left my native land, taking ship for the Antipodes as a steerage passenger. I even changed my name, so determined was I to forget all my past life.

"There was one portion of it, however, I never could forget, and that was the short but happy time I had spent during my convalescence in the little village, and the humble fisher lassie's last tearful looks of adieu. That would be the loadstone that should draw me back to Britain if anything ever could.

"But I became strangely enamoured of a sea life and of ships and sailor men. We had a long, dreary passage out around the Cape in a sailing vessel, and before I had been out a fortnight I asked permission of the captain, and obtained it too, to go before the mast.

"Perhaps I had found my vocation at last. I almost believed I had, for in a month's time there was scarcely any part of a seaman's duty I could not perform, and before we reached Australia I was dubbed a sailor.

"I had been a favourite with my messmates, and even with the few passengers aft, and I believe all were sorry to part with me.

"But the gold fever was then at its height, and what more natural than I should catch it? Not all at once, however. I stayed around Sydney for a time. I managed to beat up several newspaper men and artists like myself. But this work was all too slow, the remuneration too small, for me.

"One day I found myself standing alone in the street in the drizzling rain, without hope, without a home, and nothing belonging to me except the somewhat tattered clothes I wore. I was near a newspaper office, and was about to enter to beg--not for money, boys, I'd have died sooner--but for work, when I found myself face to face with a man who was, like myself, an artist.

"'Off to the diggings!' he cried merrily. 'Join me, old fellow, join me. We will return as rich as Croesus.'

"'I'd go,' I said, 'but I'm----'

"I turned out my empty pockets.

"'I'll wait for you a week,' he said, 'and you shall work. Come in here.'

"He pulled me inside the very office I had been about to enter; and in a fortnight's time we were both marching away to the diggings, with hopes as high as the fleecy clouds and hearts as--well, as light as our purses.

"Did we succeed? At last we did, after ten years of a life of back-breaking slavery. We stuck together all this time, and our adventures would have filled a lordly volume. We found time, too, to write to the papers, and send many a sketch of life at the diggings.

"We made a pile at last, and gladly agreed to leave this rough-and-tumble life and settle in some town, or come back--this was my idea--to Scotland.

"Fools that we were, we gave what was called a 'glorification' to our friends the night before we were to start on horseback with our pile away through the bush.

"I hate to dwell on this part of my story. But there came that evening to our camp two Irish strangers. They seemed green-hands, and I and my friend took them in and treated them well We talked too freely about our wealth of gold, and we lived to repent it.

"We bade all the camp good-bye next day, and with our convoy started for Melbourne.

"Day after day, day after day, through forest and bush, living on damper and wretched tea, and sleeping by night under the stars, but light-hearted and happy.

"'Hold! Put up your hands!'

"It was a shout of command, given by two men on horseback as we rode through a beautiful gully one day.

"We had no time to draw and defend ourselves, and our servants were paralysed with fear.

"The robbers were the self-same Irish green-hands we had entertained in camp.

"Of all our pile they left us barely fifty pounds a piece, and this, they told us, they gave us out of charity.

* * * * *

"Two months after this I was serving as a common sailor on a merchant ship bound for San Francisco.

"During the long, hard years in the Australian bush I had not quite forgotten my art, and I hoped to make it pay in a new land.

"Once more I was partially successful. Once again, boys, I began to dream dreams of greatness, and once again my dreams worked my ruin.

"My art was praised by some, my verses were said by others to have about them the ring and rhythm of the born bard. I forgot or neglected art for poesy, and soon found myself penniless and without work itself.

"Ambition, lads, is a grand thing; but it must be guided by a steady hand at the tiller, or it is a ship that will never sail into the haven of success.

"I need not tell you all, nor any of my wild adventures for the next eight years of my life by sea or land. You have heard the mythological tale of the man who prayed that everything he touched might turn into gold, and how the gods granted his prayer, and how his very food became gold as he tried to lift it to his lips, so that he died of starvation. Nothing I touched turned to gold, but, like Dead-sea fruit, every scheme of mine turned to dust in my attempt to grasp it.

"At last, in a fight with lions in the forests of Africa, I was seized and carried away by a man-eater. The monster was wounded, and, though he lacerated me fearfully, he laid down and died at my side. My companions soon followed and found me, and after a weary time I recovered a tithe, but not more, of my former life and spirit.

"The adventure had made almost an old man of me, and in my weakness and debility I had but one wish, one desire--to return to my native land and die!

"I did return. Providence was good to me, and the sea had in some measure restored me a portion of my pristine strength.

"I visited my Highland home and my mother's grave. Then an irresistible longing stole over me to visit this little wild glen.

"I stood one day on the very hill-top where well-nigh twenty years ago I had dreamt of nought save glory.

"All seemed the same on this sweet summer's day, the sea, the hills, the rocks, the wee whitewashed houses standing among the greenery of the waving birches, and the blue smoke trailing over the trees.

"Then I went quietly down the hill. Alas! where now was the bounding fire and fury of my youth? I almost shuddered when I saw the precipice over which I had fallen, and the pine tree still denuded of branches that had saved my life.

"In a few minutes more I stood at the door of the village inn. There were new people here now, but the old folks could scarce have known me, so changed had I become.

"While I munched my morsel of bread and cheese, washed down with milk, a tall figure passed the window leading a child. I knew her step at once, though she too was sadly changed. But I wondered to notice that her hair was sprinkled with gray.

"All my heart seemed to go forth to her.

"'That,' said the landlady, 'is the kindliest creature in all the parish.'

"'Her name?' I almost gasped.

"'Miss Elspet Deane.'

"'Miss? Ah, then she is not married?'

"'No; there is some sad story about her--about an artist she ought to have married, but who went away and was drowned at sea.'

"'And you say she is good and kind?'

"'Good and kind, sir! What would the clachan do without her? We all call her auntie. I don't know why. Some bairnies began it, I suppose. Ah! don't the bairnies love her, sir! And she lives all by herself, and that wee laddie in the house where her parents died. Never a child is ill in the village, sir, that she doesn't attend. She gathers the herbs and simples on the moors, and mixes them with her own honest hands, and little toddlers will take physic from her who would spurn it from the doctor.'

"'Dear sir,' continued this somewhat garrulous landlady, 'death itself doesn't seem so dreadful when she is in the room. And she has aye a word of comfort for poor wives, when their boats are detained at sea or blown far, far away by the raging storm. On that terrible Tuesday, sir, and all the dark drear night that followed, when the wind blew louder and the sea was wilder than anybody ever remembered it before--when out of eleven boats and their brave crews but only five regained the shore, Miss Elspet was everywhere, directing, sir, and comforting, praying with the widows and the fatherless bairns, and sometimes even scolding the women for their want of trust in the Maker--like a very angel in the midst of the great grief that wailed around her.'

"'The boy, sir? He had no mother, and his father was drowned on that stormy night----"

"I stopped to hear no more,

"In ten minutes' time I was in the well-remembered wee room in Elspet's house, and she stood before me.

"I thought that, hardy and strong as she was, she would have faulted.

"'Eppie,' I said, 'it is _me_!' Yes, boys, I forgot my grammar just then. 'You could not marry me when I was rich and young, now I am old--though not in years--and I am poor and ill. You nursed me once, Eppie. Will you nurse me again?' Ah! lads, it has been a new life to me since the village bells rang on our wedding morn. I have found peace and contentment at last, and after the fever of life I can rest me here. Are we not happy, Eppie?"

He did not give Eppie time to reply.

"Yonder sits the drowned fisherman's son, Fred, who saved your life to-day, Frank Fielding."

"And the wee thing who has gone to sleep on my lap," said Frank Fielding, "she is?"

"A shipwrecked waif; a stray from the sea. But now, lads, to bed."

Then the birr-rr-rr of the wheel ceased, and Eppie, rising, took wee Toddie from Frank to carry her off to bed.

But Toddie was wide awake now, and all dimples, smiles, and yellow hair.

She pointed a fat little forefinger at Frank as she was being borne away on Eppie's shoulder.

"Be a dood boy, Flank," she cried, "and mind oo say oo players."